


it gets hard to breathe (but it's always easy with you)

by technicolouredmonochrome



Series: oh, won't you dream a dream of me? (seventeen inception!AU) [1]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Inception!AU, M/M, some vague depictions of violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2020-01-05 20:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18373091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/technicolouredmonochrome/pseuds/technicolouredmonochrome
Summary: Soonyoung loves this, thisfeeling. The rush and the exhilaration and the feeling of invincibility that comes with dreaming. Soonyoung knows he’s good at it, good at what he does. Has one of the best teams in the business working with him and an unbroken streak of successful extractions.Alternatively: a Seventeen Inception!AU





	1. close enough to touch, but never close enough to belong

Soonyoung loves this, this _feeling_. The rush and the exhilaration and the feeling of invincibility that comes with dreaming. Soonyoung knows he’s good at it, good at what he does. Has one of the best teams in the business working with him and an unbroken streak of successful extractions.

But more than the job and the money that comes with it, Soonyoung knows that he would never be able to give up dreaming if it means losing _all of this._

The sky above stretches endlessly beyond the bay and the setting sun bathes the entire ocean in varying shades of pink and purple and gold. It’s like all the colours are alive, saturated and glowing bright enough to touch, and Soonyoung feels like a haze has fallen over his eyes and he can’t blink away the glare that is lining the edges of his vision. The city is buzzing in the background, distant white noise, and there’s a feeling of serenity that envelopes him as he swings his feet from his seat on the edge of the bridge.

“You’ve outdone yourself Minghao,” he says with quiet admiration. The Chinese man shoots him a grin as he settles in next to him.

“ _Xie xie_ ,” and in the blink of an eye the sky is dark and stars fill the void overhead, shimmering lights in the sky reflected in the water and merging with the blinking lights of the city. Soonyoung feels so breathless with awe that he can’t tell up from down; he feels like he’s floating in an infinite sea of stars. He lays flat on his back, vision immediately filling with the dark muted blues and greys of the night, and physically feels the whole view like a punch to his gut. “Like something out of a fairy-tale no?”

“Like something out of a fairy-tale indeed,” Soonyoung laughs. “Wait till Jun and Chan see this. They’re gonna shit themselves.”

Minghao laughs, and leans back to lay next to Soonyoung. “You think it’ll be good enough?”

“For?” He turns to shoot Minghao a knowing look. “For the job, or for Junhui?” He doesn’t need to look to know that Minghao’s blushing hard at his statement and he laughs a little at how absolutely _sickening_ the two of them are.

“You’re not clever Kwon Soonyoung,” and he can hear the pout in Minghao’s voice. “Get out of here and ask Junhui to check on the level so we can get this over and done with.”

“You just want him here so you two can - ”

He absolutely deserves it, the hard shove Minghao gives him, but Soonyoung _hates_ free-falling (that fucker Minghao knows this) and feeling his skull crack open when it impacts the ocean at maximum velocity is definitely on his top ten worst ways to die (somewhere between being run over by a car and being eaten alive by a tank full of hungry sharks).

There’s a pounding in his head when he wakes, and he blinks his eyes blearily against the light.

“Morning hyung, you’re back early. How’s the level?” He rubs his temples and tries to alleviate the headache he can already feel is going to bother him for the rest of the day. _Goddamn Minghao and his fucking pettiness._

“It’s good, Minghao’s pretty much got it down.” He lets out a tired sigh and nods over to Junhui. “He wants you to go take a look.”

Junhui just shrugs and settles in Soonyoung’s vacated seat, raising his eyebrows when Soonyoung keeps glaring at something beyond his shoulder. “You look pissed off.”

“That fucker pushed me off the Golden Gate Bridge, of course I’m pissed off,” and Soonyoung does not appreciate the loud obnoxious laugh that Junhui lets out at his statement.

“What’d you do to him? Eight doesn’t do that unless provoked so _clearly_ you provoked him.”

“Just for that I’m cutting your time in half. No time for you two to f- ”

Junhui shoots him a scandalised look and hurriedly covers Chan’s ears. “Hush the baby’s listening!”

To his credit, Chan remains unfazed and just hits the button on the PASIV, watching unimpressed as Junhui slumps over in the chair. “You can wake them up however you want to later,” which makes Soonyoung grin, his day immediately feeling ten times brighter. He wraps an arm around the younger boy and musses up his hair affectionately.

“Have I ever told you you’re my favourite?”

Chan just rolls his eyes. “Whatever hyung, just make sure you clean up everything once you’re done. I need a fucking coffee.”

 

* * *

 

The extraction goes off without a hitch, because _of course_ it does. How could anything go wrong with Junhui running the extraction, Chan on point, Minghao designing the levels, and Soonyoung as their forger? Soonyoung always likes to brag that they have an unbeatable combination of talent, and it definitely shows with how effortlessly they’ve been pulling off job after job these days.

When they’ve packed up and are celebrating with dinner at the barbecue place down the road, Junhui absently notes that Seungcheol’s team is pretty strong too. “Wonwoo is a pretty good point man, no offence Chan,” to which the younger boy just waves him off in favour of stuffing his face with another wrap. “Vernon is getting good at level designs too.”

“No way Mingyu beats me though,” Soonyoung had chimed in with a mouth full of food. “I heard he still can’t forge old people for shit.”

“Then shouldn’t Jihoon hyung’s team be the strongest one?” Minghao pipes up. “Jihoon hyung is arguably the best point man in Korea, and Jeonghan hyung _and_ Jisoo hyung could probably give you a run for your money.”

Chan nods his head in agreement. “They’ve got _two_ forgers who _also_ run the extractions. Seokmin hyung maybe isn’t as talented as Minghao hyung, but they’ve got Seungkwan hyung as their own chemist! Like how cool is that?”

Soonyoung just huffs under his breath. “I’m still better than the devil twins though.”

“Don’t be such a baby,” and Junhui pushes a wrap into Soonyoung’s mouth, silencing his grumbling. “You’re probably the best leader of the three. I can’t imagine how the others put up with Seungcheol hyung or Jihoon. They probably never listen to their teammates and have huge sticks up their asses.”

 _Exactly!_ he tries to say around the food in his mouth, but it ends up sounding like garbled nonsense, and earns Chan a few stray pieces of flying rice.

“Gross!” Chan whines, and smacks Soonyoung in retaliation.

“Their teammates probably can’t hit them the way we hit you either,” Minghao notes, and gets a punch from Soonyoung for his efforts.

“Whatever,” he replies with a roll of his eyes, but feels considerably lighter as Chan starts whining about the rice in his hair.

Junhui looks at him knowingly, and Soonyoung feels the tension in his shoulders bleed out when Minghao leans into him, seemingly unconsciously (but they all know better, Minghao is just a huge softie inside).

Best team or not, Soonyoung is still ridiculously proud of all of them, of how far they have come individually and as a team. Seungcheol had once told him that of all the teams, Soonyoung’s is the one the works the best as a unit, with each member playing their own role so well and working off of each other so seamlessly that he couldn’t actually tell that each member had distinct set of jobs.

“It’s so _cohesive_ you know, all of you know what you’re supposed to do individually but also how it works as a group,” Seungcheol had mused one evening, and Jihoon had only been half listening but he’d nodded in agreement. “Ji help me out here.”

Soonyoung had looked over to Jihoon then, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “I was just complaining about how we fucked up our recent extraction, and you start praising my team instead?”

Jihoon had shaken himself out of whatever he’d been working on and sighed, looking at Soonyoung like he was the biggest idiot in the universe. “Think of your group as like, a dance team. Each of you know what you need to do, but you guys also know how what you’re doing fits in the bigger picture. It’s your team’s biggest strength. Don’t sell yourself and the rest of your teammates short.”

“But the extraction - ”

“ - fucked up, we know.” Seungcheol huffs a short laugh. “But you still got the information. None of you were compromised. Chan forgot the name of the pet dog but Junhui covered for him. Minghao messed up one of the curtains but Chan got it changed before the mark noticed. Junhui almost gave himself away with the gun in his coat but you drew the attention to yourself instead so he wouldn’t be caught.”

“Your team’s got each other’s back,” Jihoon continues levelling a finger at Soonyoung. “So stop griping about how you guys aren’t getting as many jobs as us and focus on perfecting your dance. More than mine and Seungcheol hyung’s team, your team can somehow read each other without having to say much and I would literally _kill_ to have that kind of telepathy with my own unit.”

So Soonyoung had stopped complaining, and started running his team through drills that would focus on their strengths, and now here they are with one of the highest unbroken streaks of successful extractions to date.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he tells his teammates drunkenly that night, when they’ve dragged themselves back to their hotel and demolished as much soju as they could bring themselves to buy. “You guys, you’re the best team.”

“Watch it, your gay is showing,” Junhui had snickered from where he was lying face down on the couch.

“Says the one in an actual gay relationship,” he quips back, before all the air is forced out of his lungs when Chan dramatically drapes himself all over Soonyoung.

“I knew you loved us hyung!” he yells into Soonyoung’s ear, earning a whack on the head from Minghao who is curled up next to Junhui on the couch.

“Shut the fuck up you asshats, we have an early flight tomorrow. Go to sleep.”

And as Soonyoung falls asleep with Chan curled up on his back like a kitten, he thinks about how _right_ Seungcheol and Jihoon had been all those years ago, and wraps an arm around Chan, snuggling the shit out of him.

_I wouldn’t have it any other way._

 

* * *

 

Soonyoung bumps into Seungcheol’s team one evening, and he’s ridiculously excited to see them again despite having met them just earlier in the month.

“Cheol hyung!” he whisper shouts across the restaurant, earning a couple of glares from a few well-dressed patrons. Seungcheol perks up and catches his gaze from across the room, eyes squinting from the force of his smile.

“You should be more discreet,” Wonwoo chastises as he slides into the seat next to Soonyoung. “I thought you would have learnt a thing or two from Minghao after all the time you’ve spent together.”

Hansol and Mingyu seemingly appear out of nowhere and fill the seats opposite him, both wearing bright, if tired, grins. Soonyoung takes comfort that they both look considerably happier to see him than walking gloom-cloud Jeon Wonwoo. Seungcheol rounds off the table with a few charming smiles and bashful apologies when the waitress stutters about not being able to fit five people at a table, and clasps Soonyoung on the shoulder.

“Soonyoung! We haven’t met in so long. How are you doing?”

“Good, good,” and he reaches over to ruffle Mingyu’s hair, considerably longer since they last met. He notices the way Wonwoo glares from his periphery and stores away that information for future blackmail. “How’ve you guys been? Busy?”

Mingyu launches into a story about a recent client, (“I’m telling you hyung, it’s something about those rich types; when they refuse to meet you and just want to send you a check for the information, the job is somehow always worse”) only briefly interrupted by the waitress coming back to take their orders, blushing hard when Seungcheol earnestly thanks her for her time.

“What would Jeonghan hyung think of that,” Soonyoung ribs, and the expression that crosses Seungcheol’s face is entirely too soft and too open for someone who has been a thief for the majority of their life.

“We ran into them a week ago,” Vernon pipes up excitedly. “They have some big thing planned, Seungkwan was telling us about it. He didn’t go into detail, but it’s got the whole team running themselves ragged.”

Soonyoung’s thoughts drift to Jihoon then, a luxury he barely allows himself, and can already picture the tired eye bags and the perpetual frown. He abruptly misses the other boy something fierce, and tamps down the urge to ask for more specifics.

“We didn’t see Jeonghan, or Jihoon,” Seungcheol offers apologetically, and Soonyoung offers him a small smile in thanks; Seungcheol had always known what Soonyoung was thinking, no words needed, and Soonyoung has always been grateful for that. “But whatever job they’re working on, I think it’s a pretty big one. Knowing them, they’d probably drop off the grid for awhile during and after.”

Soonyoung doesn’t need to tell them that the last time he’d seen anyone from the team had been almost six months ago, and the last time he’d seen Jihoon specifically had been even longer than that. Back then, they hadn’t even had time for anything more than a hurried greeting, Jihoon rolling his eyes at whatever cheesy thing Soonyoung had concocted, but there had been something fond tugging the edges of his lips that Soonyoung refuses to forget. (Or maybe he made it up entirely, he can never tell.)

Wonwoo is still glowering from next to him, but there’s something sympathetic about the way he asks after the rest of Soonyoung’s team. Taking the out for what it is, Soonyoung launches into a story of their latest job, being ridiculously dramatic about how Chan had almost gotten run over by a car in one of their dreamscapes.

And for a moment, Soonyoung feels, well not entirely _alright_ but still okay, even if the worry about Jihoon is lodged like a particularly pesky thorn in the back of his brain. They eat expensive food and drink too much expensive wine, and at the end of the night Seungcheol picks up everyone’s bill.

“You can treat me next time,” he offers over Soonyoung’s protests. “Get your team over and we could hang out, just like old times.”

There’s an unspoken moment that passes between them, a product of knowing each other upwards of a decade, where Soonyoung watches Seungcheol with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia under the orange glow of the streetlamp. A passing car illuminates Seungcheol’s face, throwing his expression into sharp relief, and Soonyoung is suddenly struck by how _grown_ he looks.

There are lines of exhaustion that has begun to take shape at the corners of his eyes, and his face has lost all its baby fat, now all prominent angles and sharp planes. Soonyoung is pretty sure he looks a lot more grown too, no longer the young eighteen year old kid that had met Seungcheol all those years ago, who had clung to the one hyung that had looked after him all these years.

But there are things that haven’t changed either, like the way Seungcheol smiles, how it transforms his entire face, how it makes his eyes sparkle and causes him to seem larger than life. And Soonyoung takes comfort in that when he pulls Seungcheol in for a hug.

“When we meet next time,” he whispers into the fabric of Seungcheol’s shirt, a goodbye without it really being one. The entire team takes turns pulling Soonyoung into a hug (Wonwoo wrinkling his nose in distaste when Soonyoung plants an obnoxious kiss on his cheek) and Soonyoung waves them off as they vanish into the sea of people crowding the sidewalk.

Jun complains about not inviting him to dinner (“Seungcheol paid? And you didn’t invite us?”) but the atmosphere feels lighter that evening, and they stay up till the early hours of the morning swapping stories about their training days, only falling asleep when the first light of morning starts to peek through the curtains of their room.

 

* * *

 

It’d been him, Seungcheol and Jihoon first. The three of them picked off the street when they’d turned eighteen. Well, when Soonyoung and Jihoon turned eighteen. Seungcheol had been there a year earlier and had been waiting for the military to assign him to a unit, as promised, when he’d finished his basic training as one of the top recruits.

Needless to say, he was _not happy_ when he’d been presented with both Soonyoung and Jihoon, fresh out of basic.

“What the fuck kind of unit is this,” he’d hissed, and Soonyoung had shrunk back in fear when he saw the anger flash in his eyes. But Jihoon, ever stubborn, bull-headed Jihoon, had just jutted his chin out and challenged Seungcheol instead.

“Well, you’ve got us, so _deal_ with it.”

They hadn’t been cohesive for a long time, but after months of shedding blood and tears in training after training, their Sergeant had finally deemed them functional enough, and cleared them for some _Top Secret_ stuff, complete with the capital letters and everything.

When they first experienced dream-sharing, they hadn’t known how much it would change their lives.

It brought them closer, something about being in each other’s heads and sharing thoughts and consciousness broke down barriers the way no other team-bonding activity did, and the three of them grew so close that they became inseparable. Wherever Seungcheol went, Jihoon and Soonyoung would be not far behind, and the three of them formed the Korean military’s very first, and very best, dream-sharing unit.

Being the first also came with a lot of downsides, namely that they became guinea pigs as the higher-ups tried to figure out what the possibilities of dream-sharing were. Their very first series of training sessions took place in war-zones. Explosions, dirt, blood, over and over and _over._

Soonyoung remembers those days when he would die in a bomb explosion, with a bullet through the head, or in one particularly gruesome scenario, with his arm blown off while he slowly bled to death. He’d watch both Seungcheol and Jihoon die as well, over and over and over, until some nights he’d sit awake in his bunk afraid to fall asleep.

They never said anything, but Soonyoung knows the three of them were slowly but surely losing their minds to the repeated violence, the endless repetition of a scenario beyond their control. He was sure the military counselor could tell as well, because the three of them were placed under constant watch, as though someone was just waiting for one of them to lose it and go berserk.

The last time they were put through the simulation had been the worst, but the dream is seared in Soonyong’s mind like a brand. He remembers not being able to feel his arms, or his legs, and as he lay prone on the ground he could make out Jihoon’s body a short distance away, half his face blown off but chest still rising and falling with stuttered breaths. _I need to kill him and get him out of this,_ was all Soonyoung could think. _I need to wake him up, I need to save him, I need to -_

The ground shook with the force of another explosion, and every jostle sent a sharp pain running down his spine. Through the dust cloud, he could see Jihoon open his mouth in a silent scream.

“Seungcheol!” he’d tried to yell, vision blurring. “Seungcheol help him!”

And then suddenly there was silence, and through his fading vision, he could make out that he was in a room. A sterile white room, fluorescent lights washing out the walls and floor, and his ears ringing from the sudden absence of noise.

“Jihoon!” Seungcheol chokes out, and Soonyoung can see that his leg is broken in three places as he hobbles over to them. “Soonyoung - Soonyoung oh god.”

Soonyoung watches as Seungcheol swiftly puts a bullet through Jihoon’s head, visibly flinching when Jihoon drops motionless to the ground, before rushing over to him.

“Hang on, hang on I’m going to get you out of this.”

And the last thing Soonyoung remembers is the taste of blood in his mouth and Seungcheol’s wide tired eyes before he blinks himself awake in the military base.

He wakes to Jihoon screaming his lungs out at their Sergeant, who is holding his hands out placatingly. Seungcheol is sitting awake a distance away heaving his lunch into a bucket, and Soonyoung feels -

Soonyoung feels _numb._

A bone deep exhaustion hits him then, and he watches, expressionless, as the people in-charge leave the room to discuss something. Jihoon is strung out, small frame vibrating in anger, and Soonyoung reaches out to him with the need to just touch and hold him to know that this, _this is real._

“Oh god,” Seungcheol breathes, and he can feel the warm solid chest of their hyung enveloping the both of them in a hug. Jihoon is still shaking, but Soonyoung can feel a wetness on his chest that means that he’s crying, and Seungcheol is sobbing behind him, getting snot and tears into his hair.

Sandwiched between the two people he trusts the most in the world, Soonyoung closes his eyes, buries his face into Jihoon’s neck, and cries his heart out with them, feeling years older than his mere nineteen years of age. Cries his heart out for his two best friends, for all the lives they’ve lost, for this endless cycle of pain and death that they can’t seem to escape.

“Never again,” Seungcheol promises, and Soonyoung feels Jihoon’s grip on him tighten. “I’m never letting us go through that again.”

 

-

 

(Somehow Seungcheol keeps his promise.

In their last dreamscape, unknowingly, Seungcheol had constructed a bomb shelter to keep both Soonyoung and Jihoon safe. They could tell, by the gleam in the higher-ups’ eyes, that they had been _intrigued_ with the new development, but Soonyoung had felt more exhausted than anything.

That had been the start, unbeknownst to them. The start of _extraction,_ and after a month of downtime for the three of them, they’d found themselves back in a shared dream, slowly but carefully constructing the world around them for themselves.

For the first time, there is no blood, no screaming, no deafening noises. When Soonyoung wakes, it is to a quiet beeping on the PASIV, indicating that the timer is up, and the look the three of them share after is more comforting than anything.

“Told you I’d figure a way out,” Seungcheol tells them jovially over lunch. Earning an eye roll from Jihoon and a light laugh from Soonyoung.

That night, the three of them squeeze into a single bed and fall asleep like that, limbs tangled and breathing in sync.

That night, they don’t dream.)

 

-

 

“Hyung!” Chan hisses into his ear, and Soonyoung masks the staticky noise with a loud sigh.

“Mr. Lee, we would _all_ appreciate if you could keep your breathing _quiet_ ,” the yoga instructor at the front frowns at him disapprovingly, and Soonyoung grins apologetically.

“Hyung, you there?” and from the tone of his voice, this is _urgent._ So Soonyoung sheepishly excuses himself from the studio and rushes to the bathroom with his phone pressed against his face to hide the earpiece lodged in his ear.

“What’s up?”

“The mark is on the move, I’m not sure where he’s going, but he booked a last minute flight to Japan and there’s no return date on the ticket.”

“Fucking hell,” Soonyoung curses quietly, locking the door behind him and starting to pace. “I’ve barely had any time to watch his wife, I only know what she does during yoga!” The last part is said with a loud groan, and Soonyoung startles abruptly when someone taps his shoulder.

“If you were watching women do yoga, you should be way more discreet about it,” and Soonyoung turns to find an unimpressed Jihoon watching him from the sinks, arms crossed and a single eyebrow raised.

His heart soars and he can already feel the smile threatening to split his face in two despite the bomb Chan just dropped on him. “Jihoonie! Woozi! Oh my god it’s you! You’re not a product of my dreams are you?” and he’s overly dramatic about it, but he feels like if he doesn’t overdo it he might _explode_ from how happy he is.

He’s greeted with an eye roll, but there’s a smile tugging up one corner of Jihoon’s mouth, and Soonyoung is just so grateful and thankful to see him alive.

“Where have you been my little pumpkin pie?” he continues dramatically, clutching at Jihoon’s arms and pulling him closer. “I thought I’d never see you again!”

“Fuck off Hoshi,” but there’s something soft about the way he says it that makes Soonyoung’s stomach perform a flip. “Is that Chan on the line? Is everything okay?”

“Jihoonie hyung!” Chan practically screeches into Soonyoung’s ear, the younger boy one of Jihoon’s biggest and most fervent fans. “Soonyoung hyung, let me say hi!”

“Hush now Dino, you know we don’t have time,” and his smile turns a little apologetic to Jihoon, who just shrugs and waves him off. “Let me talk to Jihoonie, then I’ll meet you at the airport in an hour’s time yeah?”

Chan huffs a little over the line, grumbling about Soonyoung _keeping him all to yourself you asshole,_ before the line goes dead, and Soonyoung lets out a quiet laugh, running his fingers through his hair.

“You okay?”

The way Jihoon is looking at him, worry twisting the edges of his mouth, makes a warmth spread through Soonyoung’s ribs. “Hey, I should be the one asking you that. You dropped off the fucking grid for more than half a year,” and the accusation comes out a little more hurt than he intended.

“I know, and I’m sorry. I promised both you and Cheol hyung that I’d check in every two months at least, but we were being followed and found that someone had been tracking us for awhile. We needed to disappear to get things sorted out.”

The way Jihoon says it, nonchalantly and with a small shrug, makes something fierce rear its head in Soonyong’s chest, but he pushes down the anger and lets out a soft breath instead. “You could’ve let us know anyway. Junhui or Wonwoo would’ve been able to help you guys out.”

He shakes his head, and Soonyoung recognises the stubborn set to his mouth. “We were fine. It all worked out anyway.”

“Still, that doesn’t mean - ”

“Just drop it okay, Soonyoung?” Jihoon sighs tiredly. “I don’t - Look, I haven’t seen you in over six months. Let’s not fight about stupid shit.”

Soonyoung gives in, drops the topic and leans forward to bury his face in Jihoon’s hair. “We just worry about you is all. You gotta take better care of yourself.”

“Says the one with eye bags the size of China,” Jihoon retorts, but it’s muffled into Soonyoung’s shirt.

He can feel how stiff Jihoon is, hands clenched at his side, and Soonyoung indulges himself a second longer before pulling away, trying not to show how much the lack of reciprocation _hurts._ (Years ago, Jihoon would have pulled him in too, fingers running through his hair and heartbeat warm against his chest. But that was Jihoon _then,_ and this, here, is Jihoon _now._ )

“Cheol hyung wants us to meet up again,” Soonyoung says instead, when the silence stretches between them a little too long and a little too thin. “Could be fun, Chan won’t admit it but he misses Seungkwan a lot.”

Jihoon lets out a soft little laugh, and Soonyoung desperately tries to memorise the sound, knowing that he probably won’t get the chance to hear it again for a long time. “I’ll let the rest know, see what we can do.”

Soonyoung’s phone vibrates then, with a message from Junhui that just reads _flight in fifty._

“You should go, don’t miss your flight,” Jihoon mumbles, hands stuffed in his pockets. Soonyoung watches the way they curl and uncurl beneath the fabric, and lets out a small sad smile.

“Don’t be a stranger Lee Jihoon,” he orders, mussing up Jihoon’s hair and dodging the half-hearted punch that Jihoon throws his way. “Take care of yourself yeah?”

And then he’s ducking out of the bathroom, doesn’t stay to hear Jihoon’s reply or to watch Jihoon’s expression. Ducks out of the bathroom and hails the first taxi he sees on the street corner, leaving the yoga studio and its bathroom stall far behind.

Doesn’t look back because he knows he wouldn’t want to leave if he did.

 

-

 

(The extraction goes off without a hitch, despite them being severely unprepared for it.

They do their usual, with Minghao watching Junhui’s back, and Chan watching Minghao’s back, and Soonyoung watching Chan’s back, all four of them stepping in and out of line as they walk through the maze of the dreamscape to find the information locked away in an old treasure chest hidden beneath the floorboard of the mark’s childhood home.

Soonyoung is able to forge the mark’s wife perfectly, because ten minutes before boarding an unmarked email with an image attachment finds its way into his inbox. When he opens it, he recognises the handwriting as Jihoon’s, with notes like _limp on right leg_ and _tucks hair behind left ear_ which is more than Soonyoung needs to impersonate her.

He replies to the email with a cheeky _ah, so you’re the one that’s been watching women in the yoga center_ and can already picture the eye roll that will be the response to his email.

He doesn’t expect a reply, knowing that Jihoon is not one to respond to Soonyoung’s nonsense, but finds himself surprised by the short message: _stay safe Soonyoung-ah_. He stares at it for a good minute, emotions a whirlwind in his mind, before Junhui nudges him and asks him to shut his phone off.

“Flirt with your lover boy later,” he whispers to Soonyoung, to which Soonyoung rolls his eyes in response. “See! You’re even rolling your eyes like him.”

He doesn’t reply, but doesn’t deny it either, and decides to treat the entire team to Japanese food once the job is completed and their payment safely in the bank.

“You’re in a good mood today,” Minghao muses over dinner, which earns him a lot of eyebrow waggling and complaints from Junhui and Chan respectively.

That night, if he closes his eyes, he can picture Jihoon’s fond smile, his quiet laugh, and his soft voice saying “S _tay safe, Soonyoung-ah_ ” as he goes to sleep. He doesn’t dream naturally anymore, _can’t_ dream naturally anymore, and for the first time ever, desperately wishes he could just because he knows that if he could, he’d see Jihoon’s crinkled eyes and be able to feel his heartbeat against his palm.

As it is, he goes to sleep clutching his phone against his chest, heart feeling fuller than it has felt in months.)

 

* * *

 

Soonyoung, Jihoon and Seungcheol perform their first extraction on the Sergeant, based off of notes given to them by their counterparts in the American military. Despite the shock on his face when they accurately tell him the name of his childhood pet, first girlfriend, and the exact coordinates of a secret military base, there is something like pride that shines in his eyes as he reports the results to the higher-ups.

 _Espionage,_ he tells them. They are ushered out of the room and don’t get to stay to hear the rest of that meeting.

Seungcheol plays the role of the extractor and the architect, creating increasingly complex dreamscapes to escape notice from their marks as they continue to experiment on various higher-ups who can’t seem to believe that something like this could work. Jihoon runs point, with his photographic memory and no-nonsense attitude that saves both Soonyoung’s and Seungcheol’s asses more than once.

And Soonyoung, Soonyoung discovers _forging._

He doesn’t intend to, just can’t help but watch the way Jihoon responds in that deadpan way of his and tries to imitate his signature single eyebrow raise the next time they are in the dreamscape.

Jihoon startles abruptly, and Soonyoung can’t tell what’s wrong, especially with the way Jihoon is gaping at him like a fish out of water.

“Jihoon?” and Seungcheol is looking between the two of them, lost. “Wait, _wait._ Why are there two Jihoon’s?”

So Soonyoung discovers this entirely by accident, but he takes to it like he was _born_ to, stepping in and out of people’s skin so effortlessly that even Jihoon looks envious.

“Yeah you’re a genius, now get your stupid chest out of my face,” Jihoon hisses through his teeth when Soonyoung figures out he can be a _woman_ in the dreamscape.

He is abruptly endeared by how red Jihoon’s face is, tips of his ears burning hot, and Soonyoung laughs loud and bright and uninhibited in a woman’s voice. “Aw come on Jihoonie. Don’t you like me like this?”

“What are you two - ” and Seungcheol does a double take when he sees the pout on female-Soonyoung’s face coupled with Jihoon’s blush. “You know what, I don’t even want to know. Get your asses in gear, we’ve only got two more hours to get the layout perfect for later.”

Jihoon takes that as his cue to slip out from behind Soonyoung’s still female form and storm out the door, slamming it shut after him. “Geez, what crawled up his ass and died?” Soonyoung grumbles, shifting back into his usual appearance.

“Give him a break, he’s been running himself ragged studying those American notes,” Seungcheol replies with a wry twist of his mouth. “Now come on,” and he slings a comforting arm around Soonyoung’s shoulders, leading him out. “Let’s run through the dream one more time yeah?”

 

* * *

 

Minghao slips into his bed one evening and curls up behind him. Soonyoung feels comforted like this, being cocooned into his blankets, and briefly feels bad that Minghao has to do this for him, when he should be the one looking after him.

“Stop worrying hyung,” Minghao whispers, and starts to sing a soft Chinese lullaby that lulls Soonyoung to sleep despite not knowing what the words mean.

He’d been restless these past few days, holed up in their shared hotel room and unable to have any contact with the outside world. An extraction had gone wrong, terribly terribly wrong, and when they’d woken up it had been to guns aimed at their heads and all their research shredded and burned in a poor imitation of a bonfire.

He should’ve known something was wrong, could feel it in his gut when there hadn’t been any return address on the email sent to their inboxes with the information on a new job. Should’ve known something was wrong when Chan kept hitting wall after wall on both their mark and their employer. Should’ve known something was wrong when Jihoon had sent him a single line of email: _get out._

But no, he went against his instincts and the signs, riding the high of successful extractions and convincing himself that they could pull it off.

All it ended in was a bullet through Chan’s foot, and an experience far too close to death for his liking. Junhui had been holed up with Chan in a separate room looking after him as he sweated and gritted his teeth through the pain (no tears, Chan being ever the fierce, stubborn kid he'd been at eighteen), leaving Soonyoung and Minghao sharing their own room.

The first few days pass by in a haze with Soonyoung barely eating and staring blankly at the badly patterned room wall as Minghao force feeds him his three meals a day. It passes, it always does, the guilt that builds and lodges itself hard and heavy in Soonyoung’s throat whenever something fucks up. But it still _sucks,_ and Seungcheol used to tease him that if he wanted to, his mind could run scenario after scenario (what if after _what if_ ) endlessly for days if not kept in check.

And that’s what his brain has been doing.

Possibility after possibility, alternative after alternative. _If_ only he had done something different, _if_ only he had been more thorough, _if only if only ifonly -_

He wakes to their hotel room bell ringing and Minghao shifting quietly to check on their visitors. Soonyoung keeps his eyes closed and listens out for any abnormalities, a gun cocking maybe, or a low threatening voice.

Instead, he hears a loud “ _Haohao!_ I’ve missed you!” which he recognises as Jun, and then the soft murmuring of multiple voices. _As good a time as ever to check on Chan,_ he thinks grimly, berating himself for being so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t gone to check on the younger boy.

When he steps into the living room however, he finds that it’s filled with more people than their usual four-man team. Jeonghan is reclining in the one armchair in the room, fussing with Seungkwan over Chan’s bandaged foot. Jisoo and Seokmin are tangled together as they chat with Junhui and Minghao, and Soonyoung’ eyes eagerly track over the entire group to find -

“You fucking idiot,” and _ah,_ there he is. Despite how visibly angry Jihoon is, Soonyoung can’t stop the smile that makes its way to his face. “Stop smiling stupidly at me like that. I told you to _get the fuck out_ and instead I have to find out through a friend that Chan has a bullet hole through his foot?”

Jihoon looks, well he _always_ looks good, but now he looks well rested, and if their previous meeting in the bathroom of the yoga studio hadn’t happened, Soonyoung would never have guessed that Jihoon had been running himself into the ground to keep his team safe.

“Hyung!” Seokmin perks up from the sofa and rushes over to envelope him in a hug. “Oh my god hyung, you look terrible!”

“Thank you for the compliment DK,” Soonyoung replies drily, and hooks his fingers into Seokmin’s belt loops to keep him close just for a minute longer. “If you didn’t already have a boyfriend, I would’ve thought you were hitting on me.”

“You _do_ look terrible Soonyoung ah,” comes Jeonghan’s soft concern, eyes furrowed with worry. “Have you been getting enough to eat?”

And that’s how the nine of them end up scattered across the living room floor, making their way through eight boxes of pizza. They don’t talk about the botched mission, which Soonyoung is grateful for, but he catches Jihoon throwing him looks the whole night, looks that say _you’re not getting out of our unfinished conversation_ which Soonyoung desperately tries to ignore.

When they are full and Soonyoung excuses himself to use the bathroom, Jihoon follows after him with some terrible excuse and corners him in the corridor.

“We’re talking about this,” he hisses. “I don’t care where or how, but we _are_ gonna talk about it.”

Soonyoung just sighs, expression dropping and running a tired hand through his hair. “There’s only one place I feel safe enough to talk this through, you know that.”

Jihoon’s lips thin out, and Soonyoung feels all kinds of _fond_ at the stubborn press of his mouth and the clench of his fists. “Fine. _Fine._ I’m in room 817. Come find me.”

Soonyoung watches Jihoon walking away, and closes the door to the bathroom with a sigh, head thumping back against the wood and palms pressed into his eyelids.

He looks into the mirror and tries to shift, tries to convince himself that he’s in a dream, that everything that’s happening now is not real (is too good to be true, and too terrible that it must be a dream). He thinks of the old man he saw on the street this morning, of the news anchor he saw on the afternoon news, of the hotel staff who'd welcomed them in her white uniform with a polite smile. His reflection stays stubbornly unchanged.

He can’t tell if he’s disappointed or not to find that he’s wide awake.

 

* * *

 

He remembers the day he’d fallen in love with Jihoon.

He remembers, because it had been both the best and worst moment in his life.

It had been something extraordinary, and everyone who said they fell in love in ordinary moments can go _suck it_ because falling in love should _never_ be ordinary. Because Soonyoung remembers _everything,_ remembers being chased by a group of heavily tattooed men with yellowing teeth, yelling at him and brandishing knives as they hollered for him to “Get back here so we can skin you and feed you to the dogs!”

He’d ducked behind a dumpster, holding his breath and praying that they wouldn’t find him, before there is a loud roaring and -

\- there is Jihoon, hair slicked back and wearing a black leather jacket, swinging a motorcycle round the bend in the road and casting Soonyoung a stern look.

“Get on,” he’d said, and _god_ Soonyoung’s insides had shriveled up there and then. He’d obediently hopped onto the back of Jihoon’s motorcycle and they’d driven away together amidst the storm of bullets, Soonyoung’s arms tight around Jihoon’s waist.

“I didn’t know you could drive a motorcycle,” he yells over the wind rushing past his ears.

Jihoon shrugs as he takes a hard left. “I can’t,” before he books it down the sidewalk.

People are diving out of their way, and Soonyoung yells out the occasional, “Sorry!” and “Coming through!” as Jihoon winds his way around the small alleyways, the roar of their pursuers fading further and further away.

Soonyoung feels breathless with exhilaration, heart pounding a mile a minute, and he can see Jihoon’s equally large grin in the mirrors of the bike.

 _Oh god,_ he thinks. _Oh god, he’s gorgeous._

Just as quickly as that thought enters his brain, the back tire gives way and the bike comes to a skidding halt, throwing both Soonyoung and Jihoon against a wall. When the stars clear from his vision, Soonyoung desperately crawls over to Jihoon, and the red blooming on Jihoon’s white shirt steals the breath from his lungs.

“No,” he’d whispered, hands frantically pushing against the blood bubbling from the hole in Jihoon’s chest. “No no no _nononono_ \- ”

“Soonyoung, _Soonyoung_ ,” but Soonyoung’s eyes had just been trained on the hole in Jihoon’s chest, on the way Jihoon’s breathing was becoming laboured. He couldn’t, _he couldn’t_ -

What would he do if Jihoon died?

“ _Soonyoung_ ,” and that’s Seungcheol, a hand warm on his shoulder, expression grave. “It’s just a dream Soonie. _It’s just a dream._ Jihoon’s okay yeah?”

“ - a dream,” Soonyoung had whispered back, and startled when Seungcheol immediately put a bullet through Jihoon’s head. “Wait, _wait_ \- ”  But Soonyoung looks down and there’s no one in his arms, no brains on the sidewalk, no blood on his clothes.

He wakes with a gasp, and Jihoon is by his side in an instant, but the Sergeant is watching Soonyoung warily, like he expects him to snap there and then.

Seungcheol draws the curtains around their small room, granting them as much privacy as they can in their dimly lit military bunker, and the three of them are once again huddled on a single bed as Soonyoung murmurs to himself over and over and _over._

“That’s why I told them we need totems Cheol hyung,” Jihoon whispers urgently, but all Soonyoung can focus on is Jihoon’s heartbeat, beating firm and steady and _alive_ beneath his ear. “We’re not gonna be able to tell what’s real and what’s not the longer we spend down there.”

Seungcheol had nodded in understanding, casting a glance at Soonyoung hesitantly.

“Go talk to them, I’ve got Soonie,” Jihoon nods firmly, hands rubbing soothing circles into Soonyoung’s back.

“ - thought I’d lost you. _Forever._ ” But it’s barely more than a whisper, and apart from their shared breathing Jihoon doesn’t acknowledge that he’d heard it either.

Minutes pass that feel like hours before Seungcheol returns, and Soonyoung is escorted away for a counseling session and a dose of relaxant.

 _Jihoon_ , is all he can think about.  _Oh god Jihoon_.

Because somewhere along the way, somewhere between countless hours gritting their teeth through real life training and dreamscape scenarios, Soonyoung had fallen - head over heels _fallen_ \- in love with Lee Jihoon. Lee Jihoon who is all stoic lines of professionalism, who scowls when Soonyoung pokes fun at his height, but who will stay up with Soonyoung when he can’t bring himself to close his eyes. Who looks out for Seungcheol as much as he looks out for the two younger ones, who works twice as hard as everyone else to take care of both Soonyoung and Seungcheol.

Lee Jihoon, who’d once punched Soonyoung for messing up a dreamscape they’d been rehearsing for weeks, but who’d also left out a bag of ice and the last slice of apple pie from the canteen for Soonyoung as an apology that night.

Lee Jihoon who fucking _glowed_ when he’d been riding that motorbike, eyes dangerous and teeth bared in a feral imitation of a grin as he'd rescued Soonyoung in that alleyway.

Lee Jihoon who was as beautiful as he was fierce, who was all fire and sharp angles and barbed words, who Soonyoung has never seen cry apart from that _one time._

Lee Jihoon, who was the strongest person Soonyoung knew.

And Soonyoung, _oh god Soonyoung_ , was irreversibly, irrevocably, in love with him.

 

* * *

 

“I’m an idiot,” Soonyoung tells his reflection. He knows he’s been staring at the mirror for far too long, trying to prolong the inevitable confrontation with Jihoon. _Room 817, fucking hell._

It’s been seven years, going on eight, since he’d first met Jihoon, six years since he’d realised his feelings. Six years since he’d resigned himself to this fate (because falling in love in this line of work could only be a liability), this fate of watching Jihoon from afar, _close enough to touch, but never close enough to belong_.

And yet, _and yet._

“You okay in there hyung?” and it’s Chan that knocks, snapping Soonyoung out of his musing. With a deep, fortifying breath, he puts on his best game face before pulling the door open.

“I’m good,” and Chan doesn’t look convinced, but at least some kind of relief does spread across his expression at Soonyoung’s words.

“Jihoon hyung’s waiting for you,” is what Chan offers, along with a small smile. “You probably shouldn’t keep hyung waiting, he tends to get grumpy if you make him wait too long.”

He chuckles at that. “He does, doesn’t he,” and he winces at how wistful it sounds, clearing his throat and ruffling Chan’s hair as he carefully maneuvers himself around his injured foot. “Listen Chan - ”

“You have nothing to be sorry about hyung,” Chan interrupts firmly, and Soonyoung feels the way his chest tightens as he sees that familiar stubbornness in Chan’s gaze. “This wasn’t your fault. It happened, but we’ll be better if it happens again in the future. We’ll be prepared.”

Soonyoung doesn’t know how to tell Chan that this isn’t something you can be prepared for, with too many variables and too many uncertainties and too many ends that don’t quite meet. But he pulls the younger in for a hug anyway and murmurs into his shoulder “We’ll be better. _We’ll be better._ ”

When he steps out onto the corridor and finds himself face to face with the door to Room 817, he hesitates, finger hovering uncertainly over the doorbell. He wishes Seungcheol was here, he always knew how to mediate between him and Jihoon when they fought, but he thinks back to Chan’s determined words and Minghao’s warmth and Junhui’s steady gaze and takes a deep breath.

_He’s got this._

He rings the bell.


	2. i locked you in a box (threw away the key)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jihoon remembers the day vividly, when the higher-ups had sat the three of them down and told them that they were looking to expand the dreamsharing program.  
> “We’ll let each of you head your own team,” they’d said, teeth gleaming under the artificial lighting, grinning like they’d found the cure to cancer.  
> It’s ridiculous, because Jihoon has felt hate, very acutely and very intensely, for these nameless, suit-wearing assholes, but never more so than in that moment.

****Jihoon remembers the day vividly, when the higher-ups had sat the three of them down and told them that they were looking to expand the dreamsharing program.

“We’ll let each of you head your own team,” they’d said, teeth gleaming under the artificial lighting, grinning like they’d found the cure to cancer.

It’s ridiculous, because Jihoon has felt hate, very acutely and very intensely, for these nameless, suit-wearing assholes, but never more so than in that moment.

“You’re fucking kidding me right,” Jihoon grits out in the ensuing silence. “Like, you’ve put us through hell and now you want to - ”

“Jihoon.” There’s something about the way Seungcheol says it, with the disapproving glare and the tight downturn of his lips that shuts Jihoon up immediately, but no one tries to stop him when he gets up to leave anyway.

His totem is clutched tightly in his fist: dog-tags pressed so tightly in his palm that he can feel an imprint forming, and he grimaces when he finds that this, _this_ is his shitty reality.

“Jihoon ah,” and to his surprise, it’s Soonyoung that races to catch up with him, eyes worried as he scans him quickly for injuries.

(After the last time Jihoon punched a mirror and proceeded to hide his bleeding fist for the rest of the day, Seungcheol and Soonyoung have taken to checking him for injuries after every _fuck-you-I’m-pissed-off_ storm-out that Jihoon pulls.)

Somehow the way Soonyoung grips his wrist, fingers curling gently as though trying to tame a wild animal, just fuels Jihoon’s anger. “Jihoon ah, hey it isn’t — ”

“Isn’t what Soonyoung? It isn’t what I think they’re implying? That the three of us are becoming a threat to them, so their solution is to split us up?”

Because Jihoon is aware, has _been_ aware for awhile now, that this is what their situation boils down to: Seungcheol, Soonyoung and Jihoon’s loyalties no longer lie with the country, not after everything that they’ve been through. After Soonyoung’s freak out during the previous extraction it had become painfully clear that the success of the dreamsharing program lay solely with the three of them, and if any of them were to bail, all the time and money and effort that has been poured into this massive program would go to waste. _They_ were the ones running the extractions, _they_ were the ones who had discovered the many facets of dreamsharing that no amount of research could have prepared anyone else for, _they_ were the ones who had secrets between them, unspoken, that lay hidden in the corners of buildings and under the dirt beneath their feet. And these secrets were not for the benefit of their country, no. These secrets were always for each other, to keep each other _safe_.

“The reality Soonyoung, is that our priority is no longer our country,” and Jihoon can’t help the way his brain continues to spiral downwards with every word. “No, our loyalty is to _each other_ , and that makes us less effective, and that makes us _dangerous._ So their solution? Keep us in check by keeping us apart.”

Soonyoung’s eyes are bright, and his grip on Jihoon has tightened, a solid warmth against his skin. Jihoon stares at the closed fist around his wrist and thinks back to Soonyoung’s whispered “ _thought I’d lost you_ ” and feels the words like a physical weight in his chest. They’re all too attached, all too loyal to each other. And after having seen each other bleed out and die over and over and _over,_ all they desperately want to do now is protect each other, whatever means necessary.

“We can’t watch each other’s backs when we’re not together,” Jihoon sighs, feeling exhausted and sick at the thought of Seungcheol and Soonyoung running extractions without him to look out for them. “Doesn’t that — doesn’t that _scare_ you?”

“Of course it does,” and the way Soonyoung says it is resigned and tired, smile a little sad and gaze going distant as he stares at something Jihoon can’t see. “Thinking about you running headfirst into gunfire without me behind you terrifies the _fuck_ out of me.”

When he can finally swallow the lump in his throat, he looks up and meets Soonyoung’s gaze head on, determined and bright and irresistibly golden.

“But we will _always_ have each other’s backs. No matter how far apart we are. _We will_."

Jihoon can’t answer, his tongue a leaden weight in his mouth. He stares at the space between them, can’t help but feel like it’s a precursor to the gulf that’s going to open up in the following months. The silence stretches, and Soonyoung releases his wrist after a breath, the loss of warmth making goosebumps rise on Jihoon’s arm.

Soonyoung’s fingers curl, and then uncurl, hesitantly, quietly asking a question that Jihoon doesn’t know how to answer. He watches as Soonyoung stretches out his hand, palm up, and it’s like he’s asking for him to take a leap of faith, feels like the beginning of something far bigger than the three of them know what to do with.

Jihoon breathes. Breathes and breathes and _breathes_. And as he steps off the edge of the cliff, he reaches out to grasp Soonyoung’s hand and interlace their fingers together.

“ _Yeah_ ,” he thinks he says, but it’s all mumbled and terrible and hoarse, and Jihoon’s heart drops straight into free-fall.

* * *

It’s getting late, almost an hour since Jihoon left Soonyoung in the other room, leaving him with nothing more than a “ _Room 817, come find me_ ”. The PASIV is lying on the ground by his feet, set up and ready to go whenever Soonyoung comes over, and Jihoon finds himself impatiently tapping his foot.

“ _There’s only one place I feel safe enough to talk this through_ ,” he’d said, and it had taken Jihoon a moment to remember: the sunlight filtering through the stained glass fresco, the wall of morning glories that always seem to be in bloom, the coolness of bare concrete against the soles of his feet. It had been their safe haven, a space that the three of them had built for themselves, a room full of memories and late night conversations when everything got too much or when the sleepless nights dragged on indefinitely.

He hasn’t been back to the room, not in a long time. It feels strangely sacrilegious to be _there_ on his own, like being in the space without Soonyoung and Seungcheol is breaking some unspoken agreement between them. He remembers building it, an empty space that had slowly been filled over the months spent together. There are little bits of each of them in there: Seungcheol’s love for art occupies one corner, a painted mural across one wall and scattered framed paintings propped up against the floor or hanging off an errant nail; Soonyoung was a dancer before everything, and it manifests in the form of a mirrored wall and barre in another part of the room; Jihoon has an immense love for music, which takes shape as a vintage gramophone in a corner with an endless array of vinyl records lining the wall.

It’s a safe haven for them, their version of paradise on earth, and there are things they have talked about within these walls that will never make its way back into the waking world. Jihoon likes to think that if he could still dream, he would dream of that room: of the green and the warmth and the sounds of a distant bustling city rumbling in the background, Soonyoung warming up in one corner, grin bright and wild and infectious in the best way, Seungcheol bellowing his lungs out to Jihoon’s ballads, every inch the twenty-year-old he was back then. And Jihoon would’ve been happy, content in a strange way to exist in that room living aimlessly for _years_.

(It becomes dangerous, he soon realises when he’d been studying the reports from the American team. _Limbo,_ they’d said, and he could’ve spent years of his life in the dreamscape with only a couple of weeks of his life passing in the real world. _An old man in a young man’s body_ , and he shudders to even think of the implications of something like that happening.)

He blinks himself out of the daze of his memories and spares another glance at the clock hanging on the wall. Sighing and collapsing back on the bed, he runs a tired hand over his eyes and starts to wonder if Soonyoung will even show up.

Just when he’s about to give up and call it a night, resolving to corner and force answers out of Soonyoung the next morning, the doorbell rings. He takes a moment, catalogs the room the way he always does when he’s moved somewhere new, and briefly wonders if it’s maybe Chan behind the door instead, coming over to tell him that Soonyoung won’t be coming over (bless the boy, he’s always been immensely awestruck by Jihoon but still remains fiercely loyal to Soonyoung and would side with him in a heartbeat).

However, it’s Soonyoung who is standing behind the door Jihoon pulls open, careless grin and slouched posture desperately hiding the unease and fear that Jihoon can still see in his eyes. Jihoon will give it to him though, anyone else and he probably would’ve fooled them — Soonyoung isn’t known as a master forger for nothing.

“You gonna invite me in, or stand here staring at me all night?” It’s said with such casual confidence and his usual slick that if Jihoon hadn’t seen Soonyoung earlier looking like he hadn’t slept in _days_ he would’ve thought that nothing was wrong.

They pad wordlessly back into the room, and Jihoon can see Soonyoung’s shoulders deflate when he sees the PASIV.

“Jihoon. Look, I — “

“No excuses Soonyoung, you promised.”

He knows it’s a low blow, and he watches the way Soonyoung’s gaze shifts slightly to the left of him, just so he gives the appearance of still looking at Jihoon without actually having to meet his eyes. “I know, I know. I’m just being chickenshit right now. Sorry.”

As some form of compromise, Jihoon gestures to the timer. “I’ll let you pick how long you want to spend under.”

Soonyoung hesitates when he reaches the device, fingers hovering over the buttons uncertainly, and he flicks a discreet glance at Jihoon before resolutely keying in 10 minutes. “Two hours should give us more than enough time to talk yeah?”

Jihoon just nods, slightly surprised that Soonyoung would give them _that_ much time. When they’re both settled into their respective beds, and as Jihoon reaches over to push the button, he absently catches Soonyoung watching him from the other bed, gaze heavy with something unreadable, a small smile quirking the corners of his lips.

“ _Sweet dreams Jihoon-ah,_ ” he thinks he hears when he hits the button, chest seizing with its familiarity; it’s been so long since he’s heard that before going under. But he can’t be sure, and attributes it to wishful thinking.

* * *

The room is exactly the way he remembers it. And there’s something painfully nostalgic about sitting in the middle of the space, sunlight warm on his skin and flowers in full bloom. When he looks at Soonyoung, he’s years younger, hair back to the close cropped style he’d worn when they’d first met, face unlined with wrinkles and expression joyful in a way Jihoon hasn’t seen in a long time.

“Dance with me?” Soonyoung asks, and who is Jihoon to say no? When he stretches next to Soonyoung at the barre he notices he looks younger as well, and they spend the first hour of their time in the dream dancing to recent girl group songs. Soonyoung’s laugh is loud and uninhabited, grinning when Jihoon is too shy to attempt any slut-drops or hip-thrusts.

When they are exhausted and lying in a sweaty heap on the floor, Soonyoung’s head on Jihoon’s thigh, and Jihoon’s fingers cautiously carded through Soonyoung’s hair, they start to talk.

“It’s not because I don’t trust you,” is the first thing out of Soonyoung’s mouth, and a weight that Jihoon didn’t even know existed in his stomach immediately dissipates at that. “I trust you. You and Cheol hyung. With my life.”

Jihoon nods even though he knows Soonyoung can’t see him. He doesn’t trust himself to speak.

“I saw your email but I thought,” he trails off uncertainly, and Jihoon keeps running his fingers along Soonyoung’s scalp, through and back, through and back, until he hears the tension bleed out of Soonyoung in the form of a sigh. “I was too proud to back out,” he quietly admits. “I _felt_ something was wrong — you know that feeling in your gut? — and then you confirmed it. But my team had already put in three months of prep by that point and I didn’t want to just throw it all out.”

Jihoon doesn’t say anything, just frowns.

Soonyoung doesn’t look at him, staring at his fingers and fidgeting in an uncharacteristic show of nervousness, “Stupid of me, I know.” He reaches up to tangle his fingers with Jihoon, and normally Jihoon would tut and pull away, but he feels like Soonyoung needs this so he gives in. “Stupid and careless. I fucked up.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Jihoon interrupts. “Yes you fucked up, but you’ve been beating yourself up more than you deserve, I can tell. None of your team members blame you.”

“Of course they don’t,” Soonyoung laughs a little self-deprecatingly. “They’re too nice to blame me even though I absolutely deserve it.”

Jihoon pulls him up to sit upright, and cups Soonyoung’s face with both hands. “Hey — _hey Soonie_. Look at me.” It takes a moment, but Soonyoung does look into his eyes, and there’s something sad there that just breaks Jihoon’s heart. “Remember back then? When we said we’d always have each other’s back?”

Soonyoung nods, a little hesitantly, so Jihoon pulls him in and rests his forehead against his.

“Well, I’ve got you. Your _team’s_ got you. And I’ve never bullshitted you when it comes to something important,” Soonyoung starts to protest so Jihoon barrels on. “ _Yes_ you fucked up. _Yes_ you were too proud to pull out in time. But we all make bad calls. If I was in your place I would’ve made the same call. I would’ve pushed through with the extraction. And I would’ve beat myself up for it after. What would you have said to me then?”

“Called you an idiot,” Soonyoung grins, but there’s something lighter in his gaze, eyes creasing with the little quirk of his lips.

“Which I’ve already done, plus you’re _always_ an idiot anyway,” Jihoon quips back, but still leans forward and keeps his forehead pushed against Soonyoung’s. “But you’re m— _our_ idiot. And we’ve got you. Don’t just shut yourself off and hide away just because you fucked up.”

They both fall silent at that, breathing in-sync and eyes closed. “I just need time to process my fuck-ups,” Soonyoung whispers, voice muted and hoarse.

“Of course you do,” Jihoon agrees.

“But I shouldn’t hide myself away when I start spiralling.”

“Of course not.”

Another beat of silence. “I’ll need you to remind me sometimes.”

“Yes. _Yes_ ,” Jihoon opens his eyes, and notices the tears leaking out the corners of Soonyoung’s eyes, still pressed tightly shut. “I’ve got you Soonyoung. _Just like I promised_. I’ve _always_ got you.”

* * *

Jeonghan and Jisoo join the team first.

Jisoo comes in from America, having spent a year with another team researching and learning about dreamsharing. There’s something scarred in his eyes, something similar to the lost, terrible gaze that’s reminiscent of when Jihoon looks in the mirror. Jeonghan and Jisoo hit it off immediately, two peas in a pod, and even as they start coming along on training sessions with Jihoon, the way they move together is special to just the two of them, unique and in-sync in a way that even Jihoon, Soonyoung and Seungcheol in all their years never really managed to achieve. They watch Seungcheol and Soonyoung on missions, picking up forging and extraction rapidly. They aren’t as natural as Soonyoung, or as quick and commandeering as Seungcheol is during an actual extraction, but they can hold their own and are incredible at improvisation. Jeonghan has a quiet kind of genius to him, and Jisoo has a genius kind of quiet to him, and together they wreak havoc in extraction after extraction.

Wonwoo and Mingyu join next, the two of them already thick as thieves from their time in training. Mingyu is the human embodiment of a giant puppy, all sad eyes as he follows Jihoon, Soonyoung and Seungcheol with a cautious hopeful optimism, as though waiting for them to throw him a bone or give him a treat and a pat on the head. He isn’t perfect at it immediately, but the first time he forges someone else it’s Wonwoo, and the only reason they can tell him apart from the original Wonwoo is from the ear-splitting grin that is stretched across his face.

Wonwoo is the exact opposite, all narrowed eyes and barely concealed disdain in his expression. He’s especially bad with Soonyoung, who’s always a little hyperactive, terribly impulsive and just as bad at following instructions during missions. He takes to Jihoon like a fish to water though, and although he doesn’t say anything, Jihoon knows that he watches him closely and tries to emulate him as much as possible. One afternoon Jihoon slips him a case folder and tells him, “You’re running point on this one. Don’t fuck it up,” and simply watches Wonwoo throughout the job, frowning at him occasionally when he does something he doesn’t approve of, and nodding when he does something right. (After the case, Jihoon drops him a review form, and although Wonwoo just squints at the paper, Jihoon thinks he sees a smile quirk the corner of his lips, and figures that it’s enough.)

Seokmin bursts in one afternoon, all bright grins and squinty eye-smiles that gives Jihoon a headache when he looks at him for too long. They learn that he studied architecture and takes to designing dreamscapes like he was born to do it. Soonyoung and him hit it off immediately, and the two of them gleefully plan various hijinks in dreams. Jihoon is hit once by a waterfall in the middle of the Incheon airport and makes sure to state during the debrief, _explicitly_ , that he is very unhappy and very, _very_ annoyed by the prank.

Seungkwan and Hansol show up a week later, and dumb and dumber find a third musketeer to join them. Seungkwan is the first chemist to join the team, and he brings with him vials of various dream formulas, each different and intricate and slightly altered to have various effects on the dreamstates. One vial makes the dream feel endlessly long and surreal, each step they take feels like they’re moving through molasses and every movement feels far too sluggish. One mixture is stable enough for them to drop down level after level, until Seungcheol pulls the plug and determines that they’ve dropped down far enough and that they should head back to reality. What feels like years in the dream finds them back with only 5 minutes on the timer, and Seungkwan looks so spooked by the whole ordeal that he pockets the mixture and tells them that they’re never messing with it again.

Hansol has stars in his eyes when he looks at Seungcheol. Seokmin takes him under his wing and teaches him all he knows about building dreamscapes, and then sets him loose to create impossible mazes and endlessly changing landscapes that confuse and delight the rest of the team. Seungcheol takes a shine to him too, and Jihoon catches the way Seungcheol ruffles Hansol’s hair after every job well done, and spends more time under with him doing god-knows-what. (They take Jihoon along one afternoon, and he finds himself in a dreamscape full of impossible buildings and heavy-handed brutalist architecture. It’s, well, _gorgeous_. And it reminds Jihoon of one of Seungcheol’s paintings, all impressionist brush strokes and muted colours.)

Junhui and Minghao show up next, coming over from a China research team. Junhui was an extractor in his previous unit, and is almost as good as Seungcheol. After about a month of working together, Seungcheol gracefully bows out of a couple of extractions and lets Junhui take the lead on them. Jihoon struggles with following his instructions at first, but after a few more jobs he recognises how Junhui works. It’s a little uncoordinated, and sometimes more than a little creative, but genius in its own way. The first time Junhui pulls off a job perfectly Seungcheol takes all of them out for dinner and gets half the team drunk on soju and cheap beer.

Minghao is quiet but ridiculously talented. The first time he builds leaves both Seokmin and Hansol staring after him in awe. “Where have you been all this time!” Seokmin exclaims, and then proceeds to skip through the endless sunflower field. He specialises in landscapes: fields of green and yellow and red, sparkling blue oceans, and beautiful endless beaches. “My _shifu_ told me that childhood dreamscapes are the most effective,” he tells Jihoon quietly one afternoon when they are in an infinite aquarium. A great white shark eyes them from outside the glass, beady eyes watching them as a shoal of stingrays swim on overhead. “It disarms them. And, how do you say,” and both of them watch a colourful array of parrot fish pass by. “ _Lowers_ their defences. Makes it easier to extract from.” There’s something haunted in the way he says it, but Jihoon doesn’t ask any questions, and tells Soonyoung that he should take both Minghao and Junhui out for dinner one evening.

“Why don’t you do it?” Soonyoung asks, an amused expression tugging at the corners of his lips. “Since you’re so concerned about them?”

“Shut up Soonyoung,” Jihoon growls, and storms out the door before getting pulled out for dinner with the devil twins.

Lee Chan shows up last, and the entire team falls in love with him immediately. He works harder than everyone else, picks things up like a sponge endlessly soaking up information, and makes up for his age with boundless enthusiasm and exuberance. When Chan shows up with a list of pros and cons and starts in on a speech about why Jihoon should take him under his wing, Jihoon narrows his eyes at him and walks away without a word. The next job, Jihoon just glares at Chan and says, “Eyes up, follow me,” and he immediately lights up like Christmas came early. He’s quick on his feet, even quicker with information, and three extractions later Jihoon lets him run point on his own for the job.

“You did good kid,” he tells him after, when Chan looks down-trodden after the mission debrief.

“But I - “

“Yeah you fucked up some stuff, but no job is entirely perfect. Most important is that you’re quick on your feet. You’ll get better with practice. Give it time.”

Seungcheol catches him outside the room, smiles at him with a wry twist of his mouth. “He looks up to you, y’know.”

“No he doesn’t,” but he feels his ears burning.

“He definitely does,” and Seungcheol slings a casual arm over his shoulder and grins.

Jihoon punches him hard in the side and stalks off.

* * *

They announce the individual units six months after all thirteen of them have been training together, and it comes in the most anti-climactic form of a written letter.

 _Dear Captain Lee Jihoon, the following are the team members who will be assigned to your command_ the letter starts, and immediately Jihoon feels sick. He stops reading and heads out to the yard, fumbling with a pack of cigarettes.

“I hate that you smoke,” Seungcheol tells him, sidling up and sitting next to him in the wet grass.

“Then don’t fucking disturb my alone time Choi Seungcheol,” but there’s no real bite to it. Or Seungcheol’s known him long enough to ignore the way the jab was more bark than bite.

The night sky is pitch black, it’s always too bright where they are to see any stars. But there’s something comforting about the blanket darkness that Jihoon loses himself in anyway, and there’s something equally eloquent in the way the smoke from his cigarette stretches and curls against the blue-black of the night before it dissipates into thin air.

Seungcheol is pressed up against his side, all warm, comforting points of contact. Jihoon is abruptly hit by the thought that he loves this man, he and Soonyoung _both_ , with his whole heart, would _die_ for them in a heartbeat. And something in his chest breaks when he thinks about leaving them behind.

“I’m guessing you didn’t finish reading your letter.”

“Of course not,” is Jihoon’s reply. “I’m guessing you already know who’s in my team though.”

He feels Seungcheol shrug. “Jeonghan told me.”

“You two huh,” Jihoon grins, nudging him lightly with a shoulder. The way Seungcheol’s ears burn red and that bashful dimpled grin that flits across his features makes him look like a love-sick teenager. “So, what do you think?”

“You guys will be fine. Just like my team will be fine. And Soonyoung’s too.”

 _Soonyoung._ Jihoon was so busy feeling sorry for himself that he’d forgotten to ask the other boy about his team. Jihoon lets out a sigh and exhales the smoke in his lungs, hopes that Seungcheol can see the words that he can’t bring himself to say in the white cloud.

“He’s got Junhui, Minghao and Chan,” Seungcheol tells him. “I’ve got Wonwoo, Mingyu and Hansol.”

“That leaves me with the devil twins, Seokmin and Seungkwan,” and he cringes thinking about the mess that his team is going to be. “Why’d _I_ get paired with all the happy ones?”

Seungcheol seems all too unconcerned in the face of Jihoon’s misery and just laughs. “Maybe they thought you could use a little bit of joy in your life? God knows what goes through their heads.”

“Unfortunately, we are _far_ too familiar with what goes on in their heads,” and Jihoon says it with a disgusted sneer. “Mostly strippers and porn.”

He notices the way Seungcheol glances at him with a wry twist of his mouth, and feels his own lips lift in response.

Jihoon’s cigarette is almost burnt to a nub, embers flickering in the dark evening and smoke reduced to a wisp. He abruptly feels incredibly aware of his entire body, of the wetness of the grass seeping through his pants, of the solidness where Seungcheol is pressed up against him, of the heat in his lungs that is spreading outwards to the tips of his fingers.

“We could run away,” Jihoon suggests quietly. “Me. You. _Soonyoung_. Pack our bags and get the hell out of dodge.”

“Jihoon-ah — “

“They won’t be able to find us,” and Jihoon is aware of the edge of desperation in his tone. “We’re surrounded by woods, we could just _disappear_ . The teams in America break off sometimes and go private. We could do that. Big corporations would pay _millions_ to get us to pull jobs for them, and — and we could do it. _We_ would be okay.”

Seungcheol sucks in a sharp breath. “Don’t — _we can’t_.”

“Is it because of Jeonghan hyung?” Jihoon snaps back. “Cause if you’re saying no because of some _crush_ — “

“ _Don’t_ put this on me,” Seungcheol bites back. “ _Don’t_ act as if you’re not suggesting this because of your own feelings.”

Frustrated tears burn the corner of his eyes. “This isn’t — _it’s not_ — “

“Jihoon,” and it’s Seungcheol’s _leader_ voice, all firm and authoritative, brooking no room for argument. “This is bigger than us. _You know this_. We survived because we had each other. If we leave, who is going to look out for them?”

He doesn’t stay to hear Jihoon’s response, and all that’s left in the wake of Seungcheol’s anger is Jihoon, alone, on the cold, wet grass.

* * *

Jihoon finds that his unit works like a slightly dysfunctional family, and to his surprise, the team isn’t, well, _terrible_. Pairing Jeonghan and Jisoo with Seokmin’s attention to detail is definitely ideal, and Jihoon figured out that he’s here to balance out the insanity and havoc that the three of them are prone to creating. One dreamscape had involved dinosaurs. Jihoon still _shivers_ thinking about being run down by a pack of raptors.

Having Seungkwan officially on their team also means that they have some flexibility when dropping down multiple levels. All in all it’s a great team, made up of more than enough creativity and discipline in measure to possibly be one of the best in the world.

(But Jihoon can’t help it, the cold gripping _fear_ in his gut that reminds him of every time he’d watched Soonyoung and Seungcheol bleed out, or every time he’d had to put a bullet through their heads to get them out of one dream or another. It makes him beyond anxious to think about them out there without him.)

As it is, Jihoon grows. He grows and he learns and he adapts. He takes the time to teach Wonwoo and Chan as much as he can, all while training hard with his own unit to become as cohesive as they can possibly be.

Their team is always rowdy in the canteen, and the other teams always look at them with some form of confusion about what they’re screaming about today (once, it was about fruits, and Jihoon has a headache just thinking about the sheer stupidity of the entire conversation). Jihoon has also never felt more exasperated in his life when dealing with Seokmin and Seungkwan who, although _mostly_ professional, also tend to the side of insanity far too often. Jeonghan and Jisoo are also easily baited into ridiculousness, and most days Jihoon feels terribly like the long suffering father of four very grown, very adult children.

But they _work_ . When he buckles down and gets to it, he realises that Seungcheol was right back then. Jihoon was being a coward. An absolute idiot. He loves them, would do anything to keep _all_ of them safe. Somehow their family of three grew into a family of thirteen, and the soft spot that’d once only housed two other people now houses an entire group of twelve other boys.

He never brings up running away again, although now Jihoon feels something slightly strained between himself and Seungcheol. Soonyoung, bless his heart, never pushes, but Jihoon knows he feels a little uncertain about the giant unspoken _something_ that he and Seungcheol carry around between them.

And he would apologise. _He would_. But then, shit hits the roof and suddenly there just isn’t any time.

The military wants them to train younger recruits, and Jihoon spends a week in a haze of meeting these young, fresh-faced _kids_ who salute him and stare after him with stars in their eyes.

 _Simulation training_ , they call it, which is code for more warzone scenarios, except this time Jihoon, Soonyoung and Seungcheol’s teams’ are to design and run the dreamscapes. From the grim look on Seungcheol and Soonyoung’s face, none of them want to do it, because none of them want to drag these kids down the rabbit hole.

“Remember when you wanted to get the hell out of dodge?” Seungcheol tells him later that evening, when it’s just the three of them in their special room. Jihoon hadn’t been able to eat during dinner, and the whole night had made him feel like he was going to be sick. But the way Seungcheol is looking at them now, with this fire and fury in his eyes warms Jihoon in his bones. “I think it’s time for all of us to leave.”

Soonyoung looks like he has questions, although he doesn’t ask, and Jihoon can only nod grimly in response. “I have some plans. Let’s talk it out with everyone as well.”

And so over the next month they plan their escape, every dream scenario a rehearsal, and every group meeting to hash out any details, and finally, _finally_ , the thirteen of them _leave_.

Just like that. They walk out, and they don’t look back.

Of course it isn’t that simple. Jihoon, Wonwoo and Chan run themselves to the ground covering their tracks, purging their files from the military databases and trying to find safe-houses for all thirteen of them to lie low for awhile.

But thirteen of them is far, _far_ too conspicuous, far too large a group, far too easy to track, and within a month the military is back on their tail. Jihoon barely sleeps, and most nights he catches Seungcheol pacing, as Soonyoung continuously flits between them, worried out of his mind. In the end, it’s Junhui who gets them together and lays out an ultimatum.

“We can’t stay together,” and this is the most serious Jihoon has ever seen him, and the words feel like a physical thing in his chest. “We either split up, or get caught. There’s no other way.”

Everyone agrees to split up, although Seungkwan cries and clings to Hansol a little tighter, Seungcheol and Jeonghan clearly gripping each other’s hands under the table, and Jihoon just —

He feels so helpless. Somehow, he feels like he's failed them all.

* * *

(Soonyoung finds him that night, and he curls around him, tight. Jihoon doesn’t say anything but he feels a wetness on his shirt, so Jihoon absently hums something under his breath. He interlaces their fingers. Soonyoung sucks in a shuddering breath. He runs a thumb over the back of Soonyoung’s hand. Soonyoung breathes something hurt and _aching_ into the back of his neck.

Soonyoung cries.

Jihoon doesn’t turn to face him. Just holds his hand and sings and wishes that the broken thing in his chest would leave so that he can finally _breathe_.)

* * *

Soonyoung’s team flies to China. Minghao and Junhui have contacts back there who want to work with them, and another opportunity like this will likely never come up again. Soonyoung had insisted that _no one_ was to see them off otherwise he would cry, but Jihoon shows up at the airport anyway.

“Stay safe you idiot,” Jihoon mumbles, and pulls him in for a ferocious hug. “Don’t you dare die over there.”

“Aw Jihoonie. You care!” Soonyoung mumbles into his shirt, and his laugh is wet with unshed tears. ‘Take care of yourself too yeah?”

Minghao and Junhui pull him into their respective hugs, and Chan salutes him. “I’ll take care of Hoshi hyung,” he whispers when Jihoon hugs him as well, and the churning in Jihoon’s gut becomes somewhat bearable.

(That night is the first time Jihoon curls up in his bed and finds it remarkably empty. It’s like once Kwon Soonyoung left South Korea there is now a huge empty hole in his life that he’s not sure what to do about.)

Seungcheol’s team gets swept into the Korean market almost immediately, something about Hansol’s dad knowing someone who is in the business. A week later, they’re off to Jeju for their first job.

“Lucky asshole,” Seungkwan all but cries into Hansol’s shirt when they’re leaving. “One day, I’m gonna bring you there so you can meet my mum and at least have somewhere to crash if you need to.”

Jihoon watches Jeonghan and Seungcheol in a secluded corner, bent together in a way that’s almost too intimate for such a public place, and turns to Mingyu and Wonwoo.

“Good luck hyung,” Mingyu offers, big toothy grin in place. “Hopefully we’ll see you soon!”

“Hopefully,” Jihoon laughs, before Seokmin launches himself at Mingyu for a hug.

“Thank you for everything Jihoon,” Wonwoo murmurs, and Jihoon doesn’t look at him, but he can imagine the quiet smile on his face.

“Take care of them, that’s all we need to do.”

Seungcheol drapes himself all over Jihoon just before they enter the departure hall.

“I’m gonna miss you Hoonie.”

“Stop it you big baby,” Jihoon retorts, but it’s far too fond and says a million things he couldn’t otherwise say. “I’ll see you soon.”

The grin Seungcheol shoots him is in all its dimpled, squinty-eyed glory, and Jihoon punches him in the shoulder before making a _please leave now_ motion with his hands.

The next day, Jisoo gets a call from an old friend back in Los Angeles.

“They have a job for us,” he tells them. “I trust him. He wouldn’t offer us the job if it isn’t completely checked out and legitimate.”

Jeonghan turns to look at Jihoon. “What do you think?”

Jihoon grins. “I think it’s worth a shot.”

* * *

“It’s called extraction,” Jeonghan explains, but it’s not really Jeonghan, no. He’s a well-dressed, middle-aged man, grey specks in his hair and white peppering the edges of his eyebrows. _Trustworthy_ , Jisoo had told him once. _People tend to trust a well-dressed middle-aged man._

“Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it,” the mark replies, but despite the dismissiveness in his tone, Jihoon sees the way his body is turned towards Jeonghan, as though waiting for more.

“He’s hooked,” he murmurs, and hears two replying grunts of acknowledgement through the comms. “Jisoo, they’re headed your way in five.”

“Gotcha,” he says, and Jihoon watches as a woman in a pencil skirt with slim heels strut past, throwing him a wink as she passes him by in the lobby of the hotel. Fucking Hong Jisoo and his beautiful blonde women.

Seokmin whistles lowly in the comms. “Hot _damn_ Jisoo hyung.”

“ _Focus_ ,” Jihoon growls, and feels the entire dream shake through a tremor. “Fucking hell what’s happening up there?”

“Whatever you’re trying to convince me of, I’m not buying it Mr. Kim,” and the mark is stalking off from the bar. “I don’t care about this _dream_ bullshit — sorry sweetheart,” and Jisoo smiles all saccharine-sweet as he accepts the proffered hand from where he’d fallen.

“No problem sir,” and he flutters his eyelashes disarmingly. “I’m the clumsy one, you  _must_ excuse me.”

Jihoon hears Seokmin scoff as the mark eyes Jisoo’s person unabashedly, gaze lingering over his chest. “I’m going to stab his eyes out,” Seokmin growls lowly.

Jihoon ignores him. “Good job Jisoo hyung,” he murmurs. “Seokmin, Jeonghan hyung and I will meet you on the seventeenth floor.”

Seokmin huffs unhappily, and Jihoon stands, taking his time to straighten out his suit. The mark is completely enamoured by Jisoo, and Jeonghan slips away unnoticed, taking the wallet Jisoo had lifted from the mark’s back pocket as he makes his way towards the lift lobby. Jihoon falls in step with him and reaches out for the wallet once Jeonghan has taken out the room key.

“Room 17-615,” Jeonghan says, and when they enter the otherwise empty elevator he’s back to looking like himself in a pinstripe suit with his hair slicked back.

“We’ve got thirty minutes left, Seungkwan should start the music soon.” The contents of the wallet are dismal, but Jihoon notices a photograph of a little girl and a woman looking inordinately serious as they stand behind a huge birthday cake, the numbers _120714_ scribbled in marker on the back. There’s a second photo, of three boys grinning with a different, younger woman, this time with the numbers _150321._

Seokmin is waiting for them in the room, and Jihoon makes a beeline for the safe while Jeonghan and Seokmin get to ransacking the room. The safe is unlocked using the second set of numbers, and Jihoon lowly whistles at the documents he finds inside.

“Client was right, he’s gonna file for a divorce,” he grimaces, and Jeonghan sighs when he pulls out a stuffed bear from where it is wedged behind the bed.

“He wants custody of the daughter though, right?”

Jihoon nods. “There’s some stuff in here about how he’s going to get his first wife diagnosed as unfit to care for a child, and then take the kid with him into his new marriage.”

“Fucking rich men and their bullshit,” Jeonghan curses with a tired sigh. “Well, we’ve got the information, let’s just get out. Jisoo, all done?”

“He’s gone,” Jisoo breathes over the line. “We’re good to go.”

To his credit, Seungkwan doesn’t even startle when Jihoon sits up. They are in a dental center, possibly Jihoon’s least favourite place to pull jobs of any kind. But the mark had been scheduled for a tooth extraction that would put him under for at least four hours, so they weren’t left with many other choices.

“We’re done, let’s go,” Jihoon nods to Seunkwan, who starts packing away the PASIV. The rest of the members slowly come to, and once Seokmin is up they are all but ready to leave.

Jeonghan gestures for them to gather. “We split up, make sure we aren’t followed.” He turns to Jihoon. “Let’s sync watches and meet at the airport by noon. We’re gonna head back to Seoul and lay low for awhile.”

Once everyone’s watches are synced, they take turns to leave the clinic at five to ten minute intervals. Jihoon is the last to leave, doing a final sweep of the place before tipping the nurse for her help, stepping out onto the busy street and losing himself in the swelling lunch crowd that bustles along.

The entire team collectively relaxes once they’re in the air. They’ve stopped travelling together, a group of five young men far too conspicuous, but they make sure to sit so that everyone is within sight of each other on the plane.

Heading back to Seoul is, well, _strange_ , to say the least. Most of them still have family back here, and Jihoon always feels slightly uncomfortable at the thought that he’d probably have to head home and check in with his parents given that the last time he’d been here had been more than a year ago.

Before dealing with that headache however, Jeonghan claps him on the back once they’ve cleared customs and announces that he’s going to treat everyone to dinner. “For a job well-done!” he says with a small quirk of his lips, slinging his arm fully over Jihoon. “Bet you’ve all missed authentic Korean barbecue.”

They eat far too much and drink way too much soju. Seokmin and Seungkwan engage in a rap battle at some point that a more sober Jihoon would’ve reprimanded them for. As it is, Jihoon feels too loose and happy to be truly worried about drawing attention to themselves.

Jihoon is wedged between Jisoo and Jeonghan, which always makes him feel like he’s a kindergartner being supervised by his two parents. But Jeonghan has an arm slung over his shoulder and is playing with the ends of his hair which is oddly comforting, so he doesn’t complain too much.

“Where’s Seungcheol now?” Jeonghan whispers to him when Seokmin and Seungkwan have stopped rapping and started belting out whatever they remember of the Ailee song playing in the restaurant.

“London,” he replies without missing a beat. Jeonghan’s lips curl up a little at that, and then looks at him with a single raised eyebrow. “What, you want job details as well?”

“You know that’s not what I’m wondering about.”

Jisoo has stopped grinning fondly at Seokmin and Seungkwan’s drunk antics and instead leans over to join their conversation. “Come on Jihoon, we know you keep tabs on everyone.”

Jihoon feels his face heat and is sure that he’s burning a bright red now. “They’re in Mombasa you _monsters_. Now stop grilling me about this.”

“Yeah?” Jeonghan grins. “You aren’t going to drag us across half the world to go check on Soonyoung again?”

“Fuck off,” he hisses, and downs a shot to hide his embarrassment.

 _Sure,_  he’d dragged them from Tokyo over to Los Angeles the moment he’d heard about the job that Soonyoung’s team pulled that’d gone south, but he is completely justified. They were almost _shot_.

“I’d do the same for Seungcheol hyung’s team and you know it.”

Jisoo just gives him a condescending smirk and leans back in his seat. Jeonghan almost perfectly mirrors Jisoo, down to the grin and leg cross.

“Whatever you say Jihoon-ah. Whatever you say.”

* * *

He tends to fall into his work. It’s a bad habit of his that he just can’t change. Sometimes, he wakes up buried in a mountain of paper and used coffee cups, and it takes Jeonghan and Jisoo two hours to fish him out of the mess. Sometimes, he doesn’t sleep for three days, and starts hallucinating numbers and colours and somehow his mouse just _won’t_ select the correct cell in his spreadsheets.

“Hyung,” and it’s Seungkwan who sticks his head into Jihoon’s hotel room, disrupting the angry rant that he’d been ready to yell at the badly patterned walls.

It’s one in the afternoon, and “Shouldn’t you be running tests with Seokmin?” Jihoon mumbles, while he keeps glaring at his spreadsheet. Fucking rich heiresses and their complicated schedules. If she’s not at the salon from three to four, then she’s at the nail parlour, or having high tea with her friends. He’s been tracking and tracing her and her friends, family, and boyfriends ( _yes, plural_ ) for weeks and he’s actually run out of fucking colours in excel and —

“I just — uh — “

Jihoon sighs and levels him with an annoyed glare. “Spit it out or leave me alone.”

Seungkwan doesn’t react at all, and Jihoon briefly wonders where all his powers of being terrifying went: he misses the days he could glower both Seungkwan and Seokmin into submission. Now they mostly ignore his foul moods and annoy him relentlessly.

“It’s about Vernon.”

“What about him?” and the way he says it is a lot softer now, voice losing most of its edge.

“It’s just,” Seungkwan continues, nervously wringing his hands. “Hansol texts me. Every week. Even if his phone is burned, and he gets a new one, he _always_ texts me, but it’s been two weeks and he hasn’t contacted me at all? I’m just. Worried.”

“I’m sure they’re fine Seungkwan-ah — ”

“I mean, I _know_ , we would’ve heard something if anything really terrible happened to them, but I’m still worried. Why didn’t he contact me? Is it because he’s hurt? I don’t know I’m just really worried and I was hoping you could help — “

“Of course I’ll help,” Jihoon placates. “Give me an hour, I’ll get you his new number and location yeah? Then you can go off and give him a call and check in.”

“Thank you so much hyung!” Seungkwan blusters, all wide earnest eyes and a watery but grateful smile. “I owe you one, _really_.”

“Just focus on getting the formula absolutely perfect for the coming job yeah?” Jihoon replies, offering half-a-smile in response.

“Sir yes sir!” and he mock salutes Jihoon as he leaves.

He glares one last time at his excel and minimises the window with a sigh, deciding that he can get back to that later. Instead, he dials a number on his phone and waits for the call to go through.

“Hello?”

It’s staticky as hell, and the voice is barely audible in the phone’s speakers. “What the fuck are you doing in the middle of Siberia?”

“Hello Jihoon, so nice to hear from you. I’ve missed you too,” is Seungcheol’s sarcastic reply. “Should I be worried that you can trace me through a single phone call?”

“But you were in London two days ago, so what the fuck are you doing in Siberia today?”

“I feel like I should be _really_ worried that you know that.”

“I keep tabs on both your teams Seungcheol, I don’t understand why you’re surprised by this,” Jihoon dismisses. “Seungkwan’s worried because Vernon didn’t contact him.”

“That idiot,” Seungcheol sighs. “I told him _no contact_ and he still goes and contacts Seungkwan _every single time_. Anyway, we were stranded in the middle of the fucking ocean last week, so he probably didn’t check in with Seungkwan.”

“The cruise job? How’d it go?”

Seungcheol coughs a laugh over the line. “I don’t know Jihoon, why don’t you tell me how it went since you’ve been keeping tabs on us?”

Jihoon just hums noncommittally. “Well, I’m just calling to let you know that Vernon’s going to get a phone call in about an hour’s time. So get him somewhere safe and quiet and with better goddamn reception so that my chemist can finally get some work done instead of walking around like a kicked puppy.”

There’s a burst of static that makes Jihoon wince. “Well, then you should _definitely_ call Soonyoung and reassure him that you’re still alive since you’re checking in on everyone today.”

“Shut the fuck up Seungcheol,” Jihoon hisses. “One hour!” he yells one last time before ending the call with a click.

He hesitates for a second, ears still burning from the implication of Seungcheol’s words. He _could_ call Soonyoung, check in with him and the team. Even though he’d just seen them a month ago, it wouldn’t hurt to hear from them, right?

His thumb hovers hesitantly over the keypad, some invisible force keeping him back.

It’s just, _Soonyoung_. Soonyoung’s voice over the phone always makes something pull deep in his stomach. On the one hand he wants to hear more, _forever_. And on the other hand it makes the longing to see him again strum tighter in his gut.

He is a pathetic, pathetic man.

After another moment of consideration, he braces himself and dials the number. No harm done, he figures, grimacing and hoping that Soonyoung is too busy to answer the call. It rings once, twice.

“Hello?”

His voice is all gravelly and quiet, and Jihoon can tell he’d just been woken up. _Idiot_ , he chastises himself. _He barely gets any sleep and yet you go and wake him up?_

“Jihoon?”

“U — uh. Hey Soonyoung,” he whispers in return.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I just — uh,” and Jihoon bites his tongue once, _hard_. “How are you?”

“I’m good?” and it sounds confused. Jihoon breathes out quietly through his nose. “Why are you — “

“Just wanted to check in, see how you and the team are doing,” Jihoon replies in a rush. “Yeah, yeah nothing wrong here. Good that you’re alive and all. Still breathing. That’s always good. To know. Yeah.”

 _I’m just going to kill myself_ , he grimaces. Soonyoung huffs out a tired chuckle. “Well yeah, good I’m alive I guess.”

“I’m sorry for disturbing your sleep Soonyoung,” he sighs. “You should just go back — “

“Sing for me?” Soonyoung asks, and Jihoon’s weak heart stutters in his chest. “I couldn’t sleep. Your singing always helps me to sleep.”

“You should try counting sheep instead,” Jihoon says with a grin, even though all he can really hear is the pounding in his chest. “What am I, your personal Spotify?”

“Pleeeeeaaaaasssseeeee,” and Jihoon can count all the e’s and a’s and s’s that Soonyoung adds to that word. His brain also helpfully supplies an image of Soonyoung pouting because he most definitely is.

“Fine,” he sighs, and leans back in his chair, eyes staring at some distant spot on the ceiling. “The usual?”

“Yeah,” comes Soonyoung’s reply, and then Jihoon starts to sing.

It’s something stupid he’d done for Soonyoung when they were still in training. Jihoon remembers when the whole thing started: when Soonyoung had a panic attack after a particularly gruelling simulation, and he wouldn’t calm no matter how many people were desperately holding him down. Jihoon had sung that night, sat next to Soonyoung’s curled up form and sang and sang till his voice went hoarse, but finally Soonyoung had uncurled and tightly gripped the hand that Jihoon had laid on his arm.

Jihoon thinks of that night now as he sings, and he can hear Soonyoung aimlessly humming along in the phone. It feels terribly intimate, and the flush of warmth and fondness that Jihoon feels for the boy on the other side of the line scares the hell out of him.

But he keeps singing, listens as Soonyoung’s voice grows fainter, until all that’s left is a light snoring over the call.

He sings the chorus one last time. “ _To me you are very precious. You can tell me today was tough, I am here, you suffered a lot. I love you, I will hug you_.” God he means every word, wants to be there for Soonyoung forever, wants to be able to hold him forever. Instead, all he does is close his eyes, rest his head back against his chair, and tries to breathe.

God he’s the worst.

“Hyung?” and Seungkwan looks worried as he peeks past the door, but Jihoon sucks it up and waves him in.

“I’ve got Hansol’s number,” and his voice sounds terrible and shaky, so he clears his throat and takes another fortifying breath. _We’re both going to be fine_ , he thinks, and smiles a little at Seungkwan. “Go take a break and give him a call yeah?”

* * *

Jihoon thinks he’s always known that Soonyoung was a little bit in love with him. It was always in the way Soonyoung had looked at him, eyes shining and grin a little too bright. The way he was always touching him, hand on his back, head on his shoulder, feet trapped beneath his thighs. He would leave Jihoon sweets, because he knew what a huge sweet tooth Jihoon had, he would grab him by the wrist and drag him along when he decided to raid the canteen for late night snacks, and he would always search him out when they were in a crowd.

But he’d always thought that it was the proximity, something about spending so much time with each other and constantly being in each other’s heads that led to these feelings blossoming. Jihoon hadn’t felt the need to reciprocate; when they all went their separate ways he’d always figured it’d fade in time.

A year after his team had landed in America, Jihoon bumps into Soonyoung on a quiet corner of a street.

“Soonyoung,” Jihoon exclaims, a little surprised and a whole lot relieved to see him. “Oh god it’s been awhile.”

Soonyoung had looked at him then, hair a little mussed up from the wind and grin crooked in that charming way of his. His eyes were sparkling something dangerous as he leaned forward, and suddenly they were making out against the side of the building beneath the flickering street lamps.

Jihoon had closed his eyes and kissed back, hands fisted in the lapels of Soonyoung’s jacket, and oh _god_ he looks so good and he smells so good and he fucking _tastes_ just like how Jihoon had always imagined. Pretty soon Soonyoung has a thigh wedged between Jihoon’s legs, and he’s distantly aware of the all the soft noises he’s making as Soonyoung’s tongue does a thorough sweep of the inside of his mouth and —

“Uh — “ Seungkwan is standing awkwardly over him as Jihoon blinks his bleary eyes open.

He tosses Jihoon a pillow, which he immediately uses to cover his crotch, and he can feel the splotches of embarrassment coloring his cheeks as Seungkwan’s eyes dart around the room.

“I’m just gonna — “

“Yeah,” Jihoon croaks, and Seungkwan all but flees, door closing behind him with a quiet click.

He’s so fucked. So fucking fucked. And Jihoon takes a moment to calm his breathing as he wills his erection down.

 _Our subconscious doesn’t lie_ , a voice that sounds remarkably like Jisoo reminds him. And Jihoon wants to pound his head against a wall and turn his brain to mush.

The distance was supposed to help, it wasn’t supposed to make things  _worse_.

“This isn’t going to work,” he murmurs to himself, thinks of Seungkwan and Hansol, thinks of Jeonghan and Seungcheol. The distance and the pining and the longing is _awful_ , Jihoon can’t take proper care of his team if half is heart is constantly on the other side of the world.

Plus, Soonyoung is probably over it, that starry-eyed puppy crush that he once had for Jihoon _definitely_ dissipated into nothing after all this time spent apart. In fact, he’s probably working with another team and has fallen in love with someone else.

Jihoon never stood a chance.

So, being the amazing point man he is, Jihoon compartmentalises it. Buries it deep within a box, locks it up and throws away the key. Doesn’t think about it, doesn’t pine, doesn’t fantasise.

If any of his unit members wonder about the strange red apartment block that sits in the middle of most of Jihoon’s dreamscapes no one says anything.

They don’t need to know about the version of Soonyoung that is curled up on the sofa in the middle of the fifth floor living room, door to the apartment locked from the outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song that Jihoon sings is _Hug_ by the Seventeen Vocal Unit. You can listen to it while reading that one lullaby scene.
> 
> Also, I am definitely the worst. I said the chapter would be done in two weeks, and here I am more than 2 months later. This fic just kind of got away from me? And now I've decided to add one more chapter to finish things up because of the way Jihoon and Soonyoung in this fic just kept asking for that slow-burn.
> 
> Thank you to all the people who gave kudos, who bookmarked, and who left those absolutely lovely comments on the first chapter, honestly it really makes my day to see new comments on this fic, and i'm really so thankful and relieved to see that you guys love the idea and the world-building of the first part!
> 
> This chapter is a lot slower. And the tone is pretty different from the first one. But I hope you guys like it anyways?
> 
> Let me know what you think! Sorry that I'm really so rusty with writing, all kudos and comments are always _always_ appreciated. Also, all mistakes are mine and mine alone!


	3. it feels like the first proper breath I’ve taken in forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Jihoon constructs a dream, no instructions given, it’s of this house by the beach. It’s a small thing, two bedrooms, a living area connected to an open dining room, a small run-down kitchen, a patio that overlooks the ocean. The house is unfurnished, with bare concrete floors, roof torn apart from weather and age, pipes yellowing and leaking in places.

The first time Jihoon constructs a dream, no instructions given, it’s of this house by the beach. It’s a small thing, two bedrooms, a living area connected to an open dining room, a small run-down kitchen, a patio that overlooks the ocean. The house is unfurnished, with bare concrete floors, roof torn apart from weather and age, pipes yellowing and leaking in places.

“Huh,” Seungcheol says, poking at a dangling piece of drywall. Soonyoung is peering closely at one of the cracked windows, and turns to lift an inquiring eyebrow at Jihoon.

Jihoon knows the tips of his ears are burning, and suddenly feels as though he’s given Seungcheol and Soonyoung a look into his heart, stripped entirely naked and bare for them to inspect and pick apart. Immediately, he shoots himself in the head to get himself out of it.

“Fucking hell Hoonie, more warning next time,” Soonyoung grouses once he and Seungcheol join Jihoon in their tiny army-issued room. Jihoon feels his cheeks flaring with heat, and swears silently to himself to never bring them down there again.

Seungcheol, in usual Seungcheol fashion, keeps pestering him about it.

(“Is it your childhood home?”

“No.”

“Your grandparents’ place.”

“Nope.”

“Where you’re hiding your secret lover?”

“Cheol hyung for _fucks’_ sake.”)

Surprisingly, _surprisingly,_ Soonyoung doesn’t ask. But the way Jihoon catches him looking sometimes, head cocked to one side, eyes bright and a little too knowing, makes Jihoon feel as though Soonyoung has him all figured out. As though he had that little glimpse into Jihoon’s insides and has put all his broken pieces together.

Jihoon doesn’t know which he hates more.

 

* * *

 

They take a break. Jihoon has seen enough of his team to last him maybe three years, so when Jeonghan decides that everyone should go on vacation and take a couple of months away from each other, Jihoon is more than happy to oblige and immediately figures out when’s the earliest he can get back to Busan.

(He makes sure that everyone else leaves before him though. Figures out where all his teammates are headed and forces them to let him know if they decide to do some individual work in their downtime.

“Jihoonie hyung always takes such good care of us,” Seokmin teases, which earns him a flick on the forehead, and Seungkwan laughing at his wail of pain.

“You absolutely deserved that,” is Jisoo’s reply to Seokmin’s pout.)

So once everyone has left, and Jihoon has triple-checked that they’ve left nothing incriminating behind, he goes home.

Well, it’s not _really_ home.

It’s one of his five safe houses that he keeps around the country just to throw off whoever might be tracking him.

This is by far the favourite of the houses he has, a flat in a small apartment block tucked away inconspicuously amidst other small brick homes. He lives on the top floor, a tiny three-room apartment that is sparsely furnished. It is home to his favourite coffee machine (and paranoid, _paranoid_ Jihoon had bought five different brands of coffee makers for each of his houses lest someone figured out that the one thing all these mostly-empty apartments had in common was the _same_ fucking coffee machine).

The house smells musty and unused, but Jihoon still feels ridiculously at home anyway. Once he’s showered and gotten the feeling of travelling out of his system, he rolls up his sleeves and tries to get the house clean and functional again.

He starts with the piles and piles of letters: some from his parents, wishing him good luck on his travels; some from his acquaintances, with wedding and birthday party invitations. There are a few scattered postcards from Soonyoung that he recognises from the terrible handwriting, all addressed to _my beloved Woozi, the light of my life._ Those he tucks away out of pure sentimentality and resolves to read through them later.

The important letters are the few from his electric and gas companies, and those are the ones he places in a separate pile to go through first.

It’s therapeutic in a way, going through his mail. Something methodical, slicing through neatly pressed envelopes, reading the numbers on the page, circling the amount he owes, tallying each number back to the deductions in his bank account. He does this for two whole days, and when he runs out of letters to sort through, he gets around to cleaning up the rest of his flat.

He buys new furniture when he finds most of the wood in his table rotted away, and then gets around to rearranging everything to fit the new items he’d bought.

He’s in the middle of fixing up a new bookshelf when Soonyoung shows up.

( _Ah,_ he’d think to himself later that night. _So this is the house he’d given Soonyoung the keys to._ )

Soonyoung shows up, in typical Soonyoung fashion, with absolutely no warning. Just slams the door open and lets out a too-loud yawn as he struts into the place like he owns it. Jihoon is immediately up and wielding a cabinet leg in defence, while Soonyoung grabs one of Jihoon’s old baseball bats, holding it in front of himself, and they find themselves facing off like they’re two expert swordsmen about to do battle.

“Fucking hell,” it’s Jihoon who finds the ability to speak first. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Ah Jihoonie,” Soonyoung grins, all the tension gone from his stance. “The light of my life.”

They spend the rest of the evening fixing up the bookshelf together.

 

* * *

 

The PASIV is locked away even though Jihoon and Soonyoung each own a version of the device. Jihoon has a rule about no dreamsharing in his downtime that is the only rule Soonyoung follows down to the letter.

Every other rule Jihoon has, Soonyoung makes it a habit to break _daily_ . (No shoes on the couch, _check_ . No food in the bedroom, _check._ Don’t leave your wet bath towel hanging off the back of the dining room chair, _check._ )

He’s only useful when he’s around to help Jihoon assemble his new furniture, or when he lends an extra hand in moving the heavier furniture when Jihoon figures he needs some change in his apartment layout.

The rest of the time he spends laying across the various surfaces around Jihoon’s place, writing whatever he does in a small, leather-bound notebook. He’s a lot like a house cat. A large, human shaped house cat, who spends most of his days basking in the sun-warmed patches of Jihoon’s home.

Soonyoung also does the dishes after breakfast, because Jihoon’s the one who makes him coffee every morning.

At night, they sleep in separate rooms, but sometimes Jihoon wakes up to Soonyoung curled around him like a particularly warm blanket. “I sleepwalked into your room!” Soonyoung mumbles through a mouthful of food that first morning. All Jihoon does is scrunch his nose in distaste at the bits of cereal that come flying out of Soonyoung’s mouth, but he doesn’t mention it again.

As it is, they quickly fall into a routine. Soonyoung disappears outside to people watch most afternoons, taking his notebook with him, while Jihoon gets around to painting his spare room. He’s thinking about investing in a baby grand piano, and maybe soundproofing and acoustic panelling. One of the walls he considers setting aside for a new floor-to-ceiling bookshelf and some plants, since this is the room that gets the best sun in the house. 

(There’s a sense of permanence in that thought that Jihoon doesn’t want to look too closely into. He probably won’t buy those plants anyway because they’ll all be dead the next time he comes back.)

Every evening, Soonyoung returns with dinner, and frowns when he realises Jihoon didn’t eat his lunch.

“How will you ever grow tall and strong if you don’t eat Jihoonie!”

Jihoon always replies with an eyeroll, but settles in at the dining table to eat dinner with Soonyoung, listening to him ramble on and on about the people he saw at the park, or at the cafe around the corner.

And so a month passes by in a blur as such, with Jihoon and Soonyoung existing in this quiet, shared domesticity. They haven’t lived in such close quarters since their army days, but Jihoon finds himself enjoying it; likes the change in pace and the comfort that being in such close proximity with one of his best friends brings.

(Sometimes, Jihoon _thinks_ he catches Soonyoung watching him. Something soft in his eyes and a fond tilt to his smile, but when he blinks the look is gone, and Soonyoung has something friendly and teasing plastered on instead. So Jihoon always chalks it up to a figment of his imagination.)

Jihoon finishes painting his room and buys that steel shelf that he’d been eyeing at the secondhand furniture store. Soonyoung burns through his notebook and then buys five new books that are the first occupants of Jihoon’s new shelf. One evening, Soonyoung comes home with a small potted succulent that he places next to his notebooks. Something swells in Jihoon’s chest when he realises he’d never told Soonyoung anything about his plans for the shelf, but somehow Soonyoung had known anyway. Jihoon makes sure to water the plant every other day, and moves it so that it’ll get better sunlight.

Life is, well, it’s _dull._ It’s boring, and mundane, and repetitive. But every evening Soonyoung brings dinner back and they both talk about their day, and it’s _nice,_ in a way that Jihoon isn’t used to. It’s simple and it’s casual and it’s _pleasant,_ this something that they both tiptoe around, this sense of _could be’s_ and _maybe’s_ that fill the unspoken spaces between their conversations.

Absently, when he looks over to find Soonyoung sprawled out in the middle of the room floor as Jihoon works on the finishing touches to one of the room walls, he wonders if this could be it. If this could be their very own limbo, a world that just the two of them exist in with no outside pressures, living in this comfortable little bubble where the only things that they have to worry about are renovating a shared space and what they’re going to eat for dinner.

Jihoon finds himself thinking that _yeah,_ he wouldn’t mind that at all.

As it is, they’re woken up in the middle of the night by a call from Seokmin the very next day.

 

* * *

 

It’s two in the morning, an absolutely ungodly hour, but Jihoon feels wide awake. He can’t help but watch Soonyoung, _Soonyoung,_ who is dressed in a ridiculously comfortable outfit, loose track pants and one of Jihoon’s oversized sweatshirts that is worn out in places. He’s pacing anxiously in front of the coffee machine as it spits out two cups of coffee, and although Seokmin is rambling in Jihoon’s ear, his eyes can’t help but track Soonyoung’s movement.

Forward and forward and spin and -

“Hyung?”

“I hear you Seokmin,” and Jihoon sighs and closes his eyes against the pressure building in his skull. “You have no idea where they are?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

Jihoon has never heard Seokmin so angry in his entire life. Even when jobs failed and someone fucked up, even when tensions ran high and conversations turned confrontational, Seokmin was always patient and supportive, at most he got quiet and left. But never -

“Yoon Jeonghan that _motherfucker_.”

Jihoon sighs again. “Seokmin -”

“No, _no_ hyung. Don’t make excuses for him. He _knew_ how fucking dangerous everything was and he dragged Jisoo hyung into it anyway.”

“It’s going to be fine Seokmin,” and Jihoon watches the way Soonyoung’s socked feet pad across the tiled floor of the kitchen. “For now, just keep yourself safe okay? Drop off the grid and hide out for a couple of weeks. Burn all your phones. If you need to get me, you know the number by heart. Find a payphone and contact me through that yeah?”

“Yeah - _yeah_ hyung,” and he hears Seokmin suck in a breath over the line. “And please find Jisoo hyung alright? And just - let me know. Somehow. If you find him.”

It goes quiet, and all Jihoon can hear is the sound of his heart thundering in his ears. “Of course Seokmin. Stay safe.”

“Thanks hyung.”

When the line goes dead, Jihoon locks eyes with Soonyoung, who is watching him carefully. The coffee machine sputters to a stop, and they break eye contact for Soonyoung to reach for the mugs, handing one to Jihoon.

“Is Seokmin -”

“He’s fine. It’s just Jisoo hyung and Jeonghan hyung.”

His heart is still pounding a mile a minute in his chest, and it’s like he can hear Seokmin’s unspoken “ _If something’s happened to Jisoo hyung, I don’t know what I’d do_ ” when he replays the conversation in his head.

Soonyoung is leaning perfectly still against the kitchen counter, the fingers twitching against the coffee mug the only indication that he’s impatient for more information.

“Apparently Jeonghan hyung had a job, and he only asked Jisoo hyung to go with, which, _of course_ he said yes to. But something went wrong and now they’ve gone dark. Seokmin is worried out of his mind because he’s lost all contact with Jisoo hyung. He heard through a friend in the industry that the job fucked up, and now he’s worried because he can’t find them at all.”

The more Jihoon says the more agitated he feels, thoughts racing and the reverberations from his pounding heart making him shake.

“Fucking - I told them to let me know if they were going to pull jobs on their own you know? Told them _explicitly,_ let me know, so that I can run background checks. So that I can keep track of them. So that I can pull them out of trouble if necessary. But now -”

And he chokes up, loses his voice halfway, stares unblinkingly at Soonyoung’s ridiculous pink track pants and at his socks with the little ducks printed on them, wills his hands to stop trembling and his heart to stop beating so loudly in his chest.

“They’re compromised. Which means my whole unit is compromised. _Fuck._ ”

Soonyoung is in front of him in a flash, carefully prying the coffee cup out of Jihoon’s hands and offering him a small smile. “Fucking _hell_ Yoon Jeonghan yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jihoon laughs, except it sounds anything but happy and the noise claws its way out of his throat. “Listen Soonyoung -”

“If you say this is none of my business and banish me from your apartment, I’m pouring your coffee all over you.”

“ _Soonyoung._ ”

“No,” and Jihoon finds his fingers linked with Soonyoung’s in a loose hold. “Listen Jihoon. I’m here for you. Let me _help you._ We said we’ve got each other’s back no? I’ve got yours now. So let me help you.”

Jihoon takes a deep breath and feels his resolve wavering. “But -”

“No buts,” Soonyoung hushes. “We work faster as two than when it’s just you yeah?”

Their fingers are still loosely linked together, and this time, Jihoon is the one who tightens his hold. “Yeah. Yeah you’re right.”

“Of course I am,” Soonyoung laughs. “Now tell me. What should we do first?”

And standing there, in the middle of the kitchen with their hands laced together, as Jihoon rambles on about contacts and phone numbers and tracking devices, he feels his heart freefall straight into Soonyoung.

 _Oh,_ he’d think to himself later on. _This is what it feels like to fall in love._

 

* * *

 

It takes them three hours, but Jihoon and Soonyoung through the power of contacts and sheer luck manage to get Jeonghan and Jisoo on the phone for five minutes.

“You son of a bitch,” is the first thing Jihoon says when the line connects.

“Jihoon -”

“No, _listen to me._ Seokmin is furious and so am I hyung. You should’ve said something. We have _protocols_ for things like these.”

Jeonghan just sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I did this with no warning and put everyone in danger. I’m sorry I dragged Jisoo into this as well without telling anyone else beforehand.”

The silence that drags after is tense. Jihoon feels the anger simmering in his chest, feels the worry lodged like a thorn in his ribcage. “Why’d you do it hyung?”

More silence. Just when he thinks the line has disconnected, Jeonghan’s staticky sigh crackles through the speakers. “It was personal Jihoon.”

Which, as Jihoon understands, means it’s either family, or Seungcheol. He asks which it is, not knowing which he’d rather it be.

Turns out, it’s the latter.

Jisoo gets on the line once Jeonghan promises to go dark for a couple of weeks, and says that he’ll forward everything he has on the job to Jihoon as soon as he can. “Seokmin - how is he?”

“He’s worried about you hyung.” Jihoon isn’t the type to sugarcoat his words, so he adds, “And fucking furious at the both of you too.”

“I know,” and he can hear the remorse in Jisoo’s tone of voice. “I deserve it, but I couldn’t leave Hannie to do this on his own. I’m sorry about keeping him in the dark but I had no choice.”

“Go track him down you headass,” is all Jihoon says, and hangs up without waiting for a reply. 

 

* * *

 

Soonyoung shuffles into the room after what feels like hours with two steaming mugs of coffee. He sets them in front of Jihoon before muffling a yawn into a sweater paw, and Jihoon feels himself melt at the sight; the tension and stress from the early morning being replaced by something soft and fond.

“You found them?” Soonyoung asks.

Jihoon just nods in reply. 

“Seungkwan?”

A lump forms in Jihoon’s throat. “He’s still not answering.”

There is a moment of shared silence, some of the uncertainty and worry from Seokmin’s call bleeding away, only to be replaced by a bundle of nerves that is now directed at Seungkwan’s whereabouts. The sun is just starting to rise, the soft pinks and oranges spilling through the drapes, and Jihoon feels the exhaustion settle deep in his bones.

“I think Cheol hyung’s in trouble.”

The breath that Soonyoung exhales is something sharp. “We gotta go save his ass then,” and when Jihoon turns to look at him, he sees his trademark roguish grin tempered by the weariness clear on his face. “We just need to track him down and -”

“Soonyoung,” and Soonyoung turns to look at him immediately, expression tight with concern. “We’re gonna have to burn this location. All those calls we made? Anyone can track them back here.”

Jihoon watches Soonyoung then, the way his expression turns sad, and then a little wistful. “Oh,” and there’s the slightest downturn of his lips, the faintest misting of his eyes. Jihoon knows how guarded Soonyoung normally is, so to see him so open and vulnerable makes something ache in his chest. “But, just in case. Could we not throw it away completely? Maybe no one will find it and we could still come back once in awhile. Please?”

Jihoon doesn’t have the heart to tell him no. By noon that same day, the two of them are on a train headed away from their safe haven.

Left in their wake is a corpse of a house, shelves bare and cupboards empty. All that’s left is a row of plants sitting along an otherwise empty bookshelf, the only indication that someone had been there at all.

(He has no idea who initiates it this time, and Soonyoung’s hand is warm and a little clammy in his, but it feels like the only tether he still has to this world.

He feels as though the moment Soonyoung lets go of him, he’ll float away and vanish into thin air.)

 

* * *

 

Jihoon is sleeping on his shoulder. Soonyoung shifts a little in his seat, gently moving them both into a more comfortable position. If Jihoon wakes up he’d probably recoil immediately at the physical contact, so Soonyoung takes extra care to ensure that he doesn’t jostle him awake.

They’re on a train to Jeju, where Seungkwan was last headed. Soonyoung doesn’t think he’s still there, but Jihoon said they didn’t have any other leads so Jeju was their best bet. 

There’s something mesmerizing about watching the scenery outside pass by in a blur. It’s like watching wet paint smear across a canvas, both calming and destructive in equal measure. Soonyoung’s no lyrical genius the way Minghao is, but he finds some kind of poetic justice in watching the outside world turn into nothing but a mass of colour and vague shapes.

He hates being on the run. Despite everything Soonyoung is, flighty and fickle and constantly floating with his head in the clouds, he hates the sense of impermanence that comes with being forcefully displaced. It’s definitely up there on the list of things that he hates most about this job. Probably second only to different time zones.

The only people on the train at this time of the day are older individuals and scattered tourists, still he can’t help feeling like they’re constantly being tailed by someone. There’s an older man sitting diagonally behind them that keeps shooting them glances, and Soonyoung unconsciously angles himself to block Jihoon from view.

“Quit moving you idiot,” Jihoon murmurs, before burrowing into Soonyoung’s shoulder. “I’m trying to sleep here.”

Soonyoung lets all the affection he feels for Jihoon flood his system for a brief moment before swallowing down the words _I absolutely adore you_ and exchanging them for “Well, your heavy ass head is putting my arm to sleep, so I’ve got to shift around to keep the blood flowing.”

He holds his breath after, worried that Jihoon is going to move away, but Jihoon just pouts briefly and ignores his jab, keeping his face buried in the sleeve of Soonyoung’s pullover. It’s ridiculous, because something like this warms Soonyoung down to his toes, and makes him feel like his heart is ready to burst out of his chest.

They have no idea what awaits them in Jeju, but for the moment Soonyoung is satisfied to just have Jihoon close by his side, satisfied to just lean over and rest his cheek against the top of Jihoon’s head.

He leans in, and _breathes._

(It feels like the first proper breath he’s taken in forever.)

 

* * *

 

Seungkwan opens the door within two knocks.

“You idiot!” Jihoon grits through his teeth. “What if I’d been someone dangerous?”

Soonyoung immediately places a hand on Jihoon’s shoulder and squeezes, noticing how some of the tension bleeds out of his posture. “Hey Kwannie,” Soonyoung grins, although he’s aware of how exhausted the two of them must look. “Could you let us in?”

“Of course!” Seungkwan tells them, nervously wringing his hands as he lets them into the house. Unsurprisingly, Hansol and Chan are not far behind Seungkwan, both looking perplexed at their arrival.

“Hyung?” Chan asks, worry clear on his expression.

Jihoon is like an unstoppable force, muttering about _safety precautions_ and _do I have to do everything myself?_

Soonyoung shoots the three of them a small smile. “Can you let us wash up? We’ll fill you in after.”

The house they are staying in is one of Seungkwan’s family homes, a neat little well-kept place that is more open than closed off, with large windows and open balconies that overlook the streets below. There are traces of the three of them everywhere: a stack of architecture books in a corner of the living room that are worn from overuse that is clearly Hansol’s, countless beakers and flasks that line the kitchen sink with _Don’t drink out of this Lee Chan!!_ in Seungkwan’s neat handwriting, three laptops of various sizes all linked to a projector that Soonyoung is pretty sure belongs to Chan.

Abruptly, he feels like an intruder on this life they’d built, aware that he and Jihoon barging into this house had disrupted the peaceful sanctuary they’d constructed for themselves.

The shower is small but relatively tidy, but more importantly the water is hot against his skin, and he’s turning red from the heat. But the burn helps to ground him, helps to dissipate the fog that had enveloped his mind since Seokmin made the call yesterday.

“We’re going to be okay,” he murmurs to himself. “Seungkwan is here and Chan is here and Hansol is here and we’re _fine_. We’re okay.”

He holds himself perfectly still, counts to ten, breathes in and holds it till dark spots start to fill his vision. Mouths the words under the spray of the shower. “ _We’re okay._ ”

It helps to feel himself in control of his entire body (“ _We’re okay_ ”), so he carefully crooks fingers and tenses muscles and shakes the tightness in his neck loose.

“We’re okay. _We’re okay._ ” He repeats it to himself as the water runs cold, as he dries himself down and pulls on a fresh set of clothes.

“We’re okay,” is the first thing he says to Chan when he corners him the moment he steps out of the bathroom.

“Are you really?” Chan asks. “Because Jihoon hyung pulled Seungkwan hyung into the bedroom and locked the door behind them. They’ve been in there for more than ten minutes now.”

Soonyoung lets out a breath through his nose. _We’re okay, we’re going to be okay._ “Yeah. Where’s Hansol? I’ll fill you in on what’s happening, and then you need to tell me everything that you know as well.”

Chan nods, and it’s one of those nods that makes him seem far older than he actually is.

 _Ah, they’ve all really grown up haven’t they,_ Soonyoung thinks when he sits across Hansol and Chan, both of them looking alert and like they’re bracing themselves for a blow.

“It’s Seungcheol hyung,” he starts, and Hansol visibly flinches like the name is a punch to the gut. He can tell they’re dying to shoot off and ask a million questions, but they hold themselves still and silent as Soonyoung recounts everything, their expressions growing darker by the minute.

Jihoon is still locked in the room with Seungkwan when Soonyoung finishes.

“Wonwoo hyung should know where Seungcheol hyung is,” is the first thing Hansol says. “He should - I know he keeps tabs on all of us.”

Soonyoung nods. “Jihoon keeps track of everyone as well, but Cheol hyung has dropped off the grid completely. He was worried about Seungkwan once he figured out Jeonghan hyung and Jisoo hyung’s involvement so tracking him down was our first priority. We’ll probably try to find Wonwoo and Mingyu next to see if they know where Cheol hyung is.”

“Anything we can help with?” Chan asks, and Soonyoung sees where he’s laced his hand together with Hansol’s.

“Nothing for now.” He glances at the closed bedroom door, and lets out a quiet sigh. “Let’s wait for Jihoon and Seungkwan, then we can talk about what to do next.”

 

* * *

 

It’s another hour before Jihoon and Seungkwan emerge, Hansol immediately folding Seungkwan into his arms as Jihoon collapses into the chair next to Soonyoung.

“Everything okay?” he whispers to Jihoon, and watches quietly as Hansol runs fingers through Seungkwan’s hair while Chan presses himself against his hyungs. They murmur together quietly for a moment, before Hansol and Chan wedge Seungkwan between them and head to one of the bedrooms without another word.

“He’s worried, especially about Seokmin.” Soonyoung offers him a sympathetic smile in response and presses against Jihoon’s side.

Jihoon looks like he might drop dead at any moment, the stress and exhaustion of the day written clearly on his face, and Soonyoung himself feels like he’s about to fall asleep where he’s seated.

“Hyungs?” Soonyoung looks up to find Chan standing in the hallway, watching them carefully, and smiles at him encouragingly. “We should be safe here for a couple of days, I’ve got us pretty well hidden.”

Jihoon straightens up immediately. “Did you -”

“I did everything hyung. Digital signatures, fake IDs, left a cold trail in Canada, _everything._ ” 

Soonyoung feels ridiculously proud of Chan in that moment, and _yes_ Jihoon might be the best point man in South Korea, but Chan was just as careful and meticulous when it came to protecting the people important to him.

“The two of you should rest, you guys look like you need it,” he continues, and Jihoon quietens next to Soonyoung. “I’ll check on some things, but you don’t need to worry about anything for at least three days.”

To Soonyoung’s surprise, Jihoon just nods and doesn’t argue with him. Even more surprising is the quiet, “Thank you Chan,” that Jihoon murmurs before walking off to the bedroom.

Chan looks just as shocked as Soonyoung feels, before he visibly recollects himself and turns to Soonyoung. “Hyung, I’m sorry but we only have one spare room -”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll share,” Soonyoung replies and offers him a tired grin. “He means it Chan, and so do I. _Thank you._ We owe you one.”

Immediately, Chan’s face flushes red and he waves away Soonyoung’s grateful smile. “It’s nothing. I’m just doing what Jihoon hyung taught me. It’s basically my _job_ hyung.”

This earns him a laugh from Soonyoung, who affectionately ruffles his hair as he passes him in the hallway. “Don’t go growing up on me now Lee Chan.”

Chan sputters indignantly but doesn’t argue, and Soonyoung bids him goodnight before slipping into the room that Jihoon entered earlier.

Jihoon is already curled up on the bed, completely dwarfed by the comforter and pillows. He looks small, so crushed and afraid of all the things that have transpired in the day, and he’s clearly trying to hold himself completely still, which is how Soonyoung knows he’s not asleep yet.

He doesn’t say anything though, knows Jihoon doesn’t want to talk about it, not yet at least. Instead, he wordlessly slips into the bed and curls himself behind Jihoon, pressing himself as close as possible.

“Goodnight Hoonie,” he whispers into the dark, and presses his nose against the hollow of Jihoon’s neck.

There isn’t a reply, Soonyoung wasn’t expecting one anyway, but he can feel the way Jihoon can’t stop shaking against him. It breaks his heart, and he gently laces their fingers together, trying to say _I’m here Jihoon, I’ve got you._

“ _To me you are very precious,_ ” he sings quietly, aware of how scratchy and terrible his voice sounds, feeling absurdly self conscious but determined to comfort Jihoon anyway. “ _You can tell me today was tough. I am here, you suffered a lot. I love you,_ ” and his voice cracks on the word. “ _I will hug you._ ”

 

* * *

 

(Jihoon cries.

He listens to Soonyoung sing, and his vision blurs with tears, and he finally lets himself _go_.

He shakes, and he sobs, and he can’t seem to stop.

But Soonyoung doesn’t mind. Soonyoung keeps singing. He sings and sings as his voice turns hoarse, and Jihoon presses back against him, and listens to him sing.

Closes his eyes, shakes through the tears, and wills himself to believe.

 _I love you. I will hug you._ )

 

* * *

 

The next day feels unbearably gray. Seungkwan and Hansol are both quiet, each plagued by worry and concern for a thousand things beyond their control. Chan is hunched over his laptop, gnawing his bottom lip raw as he types furiously. Jihoon is equally stoic and silent as he works on his own computer, occasionally looking up and scanning the room, as though he’s worried that one of them will vanish into thin air the moment he’s not looking.

Soonyoung feels, well, he feels _useless_. He wants to go out, wants to walk down the streets and greet the nice old lady he’d seen sitting outside yesterday and make conversation with the couple running the restaurant a few blocks down the road. But he can’t, he’s stuck in this house with the oppressive atmosphere and the tension in the air eating away at his bones. He feels so trapped and jittery that he thinks he’s going to jump out of his own skin at any moment.

Jihoon can tell how restless he is by midday, so he reluctantly sends Soonyoung and Hansol out for some lunch.

“Be careful,” he breathes to Soonyoung, and absently runs a hand through Soonyoung’s messy hair to smooth it down. Chan looks up for a moment and shoots Hansol a look, before waving goodbye to them.

“Don’t take too long hyung,” and although Soonyoung feels like the statement is directed at him, Chan doesn’t take his eyes off Hansol as he says it.

“Oh god,” he breathes the moment the main door closes behind him, feeling all the tension bleed out of him in an instant. Hansol huffs out a quiet noise of agreement, and they begin walking down the street.

He tries to engage Hansol in conversation, but it’s clear he isn’t in the mood for the mindless chatter that Soonyoung is trying to initiate. So Soonyoung fills the silence with his usual rambling, talks about the scenery and the weather and the flowers that line the road, keeps going on and on until he feels Hansol stop abruptly in the middle of the pavement.

“Do you think he’s okay?” It’s said so quietly that Soonyoung almost misses it, but he slows his steps to a stop and goes silent immediately, thinking hard over the question.

“I don’t know,” is the reply he comes up with. “I want to say that he’s fine, that everything is okay and we’re all terrified for no reason, but then I’d be lying to you.”

Hansol takes a couple of steps forward and stands shoulder to shoulder with him. “I know hyung, that’s why I asked you. Jihoon hyung would try to hide it from us.”

Soonyoung nods; he knows Jihoon has always been a bit too soft on the younger members, but that’s not what Hansol needs right now. He needs honesty, and Soonyoung is more than willing to give that to him.

“You know that Jihoon and I will do everything we can to find him and make sure he’s okay right?”

“Of course,” and there’s a hint of a smile on Hansol’s lips. “The three of you have this sixth sense when it comes to each other. If anyone’s got Cheol hyung’s back it’s you guys.”

“And the moment we find him, we’ll let you know.”

Hansol lets out a quiet sigh. “I just want to help hyung.”

“Look after Seungkwan and Chan for now Hansol. They need you,” and Soonyoung rests a comforting hand on his shoulder, and watches as Hansol sags in defeat. “The three of you need to stick together for now. It’s too dangerous for anyone from Seungcheol’s usual unit to go looking for him, it’ll raise too many red flags.”

“I know, but I want to go anyway,” and when Hansol looks at him there are slight tears at the corners of his eyes. “Is there - can I really do nothing but wait?”

Soonyoung wants to tell him that he can come along, because Soonyoung knows firsthand that waiting is possibly the worst experience in the world. But he knows that if someone’s out for Seungcheol, everyone on Seungcheol’s team is going to be under close scrutiny, and instead of protecting him they could end up leading the enemy straight to him. “The best thing you can do now is make sure Seungkwan is taken care of. I’ve no idea how compromised Jihoon’s team is, but someone could be coming for Seungkwan.”

Hansol doesn’t acknowledge his words, but he does start walking again. Soonyoung waits for a beat before following suit. _I’m terrible at this_ , he thinks to himself. _Why do I feel like I just made the whole situation worse?_

They don’t talk the rest of the way there, and when they reach the restaurant, Soonyoung relays their orders to the couple behind the counter with a strained smile. The walk back is equally silent, and Soonyoung can tell that Hansol’s turning over what he said in his mind, carefully parsing out the words and the thoughts and weighing the pros and cons against one another. It’s only when they’re at the front porch of the house they’re staying at that Hansol turns to him with determination in his eyes.

“Okay hyung, I’ll stay with them for now,” and Soonyoung breathes a quiet sigh of relief at that. “But if you can’t find Cheol hyung within the next month I’m going to go looking for him.”

Soonyoung nods in response. “Of course. Thank you Hansol.”

Hansol offers Soonyoung a small quirk of his lips in reply. “Thank you for being honest with me hyung.”

“I think I made it worse for you,” Soonyoung says with a self-deprecating smile.

“You didn’t hyung! You really didn’t,” and Hansol leans in to give Soonyoung a hug. “I really appreciate you being honest with me. It helped me sort things out.”

Soonyoung tightens his arms around Hansol, and they startle apart when the door swings open to reveal Seungkwan watching them with an amused grin from the doorway. “Should I be worried?”

That prompts a laugh from Hansol, who immediately slings an arm around Soonyoung to pull him against his side. “Of course, I’m leaving you and Chan for Soonyoung hyung.”

“You’re going to have to fight Jihoon hyung if that’s the case!” Chan yells from further inside the house, followed by a “Ow - _ow hyung! Stop smacking me with my notes!_ ”

Soonyoung laughs along with the two younger ones, making kissy faces at Hansol while Seungkwan tries to pry them apart. Chan and Jihoon are locked in a brawl on the living room floor, and Soonyoung spots the flush of colour on the tips of Jihoon’s ears.

“Aw, are you fighting for my honor Jihoonie?” Soonyoung teases, which to his surprise, causes the colour to spread to his cheeks.

“Shut up you idiot,” Jihoon grumbles. “Let’s just eat so I can get back to my research.”

The rest of the day feels significantly lighter than the morning had been, and Jihoon and Chan move to the floor where they endlessly bicker while swapping notes. Soonyoung joins Seungkwan and Hansol as they talk through where Seungcheol could be hiding out (“He could be back in Siberia?” “I don’t think so, that’d be too predictable. He’d try to go somewhere no one would expect.”).

When it gets late, Soonyoung drags Jihoon off to bed while Seungkwan and Hansol does the same with Chan.

“We’re so close Soonie,” Jihoon mumbles sleepily. Soonyoung feels himself blush at the nickname and tucks Jihoon under the blankets.

“You can just continue in the morning, for now you need to rest.”

Jihoon just hums, and pulls Soonyoung in next to him, curling up against him like a kitten.

“Goodnight Hoonie,” Soonyoung whispers, but Jihoon’s already fast asleep.

 

* * *

 

It takes them another day before they find a lead in China.

“Seungcheol hyung won’t be there,” Jihoon muses out loud. “But maybe Wonwoo and Mingyu are hiding out with Junhui and Minghao.”

They’re gathered in the dining room, the remnants of dinner still scattered on the table. It’s late in the evening, and the exhaustion from the day of researching is starting to catch up to them, but despite everything Soonyoung is also feeling more hopeful than whatever he’s felt since this whole ordeal started.

“If they aren’t, I’m pretty sure Jun will know where they are,” Soonyoung adds.

“I hate that I can’t seem to track anyone down,” Jihoon grumbles. “Couldn’t find Seungkwan, can’t find Seungcheol hyung, and now I only have the vaguest lead on where Wonwoo and Mingyu are.”

Hansol is apologetic that he can’t give them more specifics on where his hyungs are, but Soonyoung gets it, this whole thing with Seungcheol is unprecedented waters.

“Wonwoo hyung just checked in on me and then told me that he was disappearing for a bit,” is all Hansol can offer. “Once he found out I was with Chan and Seungkwan he told me to just stay with them.”

“Not your fault Hansol,” Jihoon sighs, before pulling out a thick envelope and sliding across the table. “I got you guys three tickets to Dubai. I’ve also gotten a safe house there for you in the city, instructions on how to get there are in the envelope.”

Chan pulls out the stack of notes and the tickets, going through each page carefully while nodding along to Jihoon’s instructions.

“Thank you hyung,” Seungkwan speaks up, and Soonyoung watches as something fond and affectionate passes between them when Jihoon reaches up to ruffle Seungkwan’s hair.

“Look after each other yeah? Soonyoung and I will find you guys as soon as everything’s sorted out.”

That night, Soonyoung finds Jihoon sitting by the edge of the bed when he enters the room and immediately feels his blood run cold with anxiety.

“Jihoon?”

“Soonyoung,” Jihoon says, and he looks inordinately serious. “Soonyoung. I got you a ticket to Dubai as well -”

“Stop it,” Soonyoung interrupts fiercely, the ice in his veins shattering and something hot and angry contracting tightly in his chest. “ _Stop_ trying to push me away. I’m sticking with you Jihoon. We get this done _together._ ”

Jihoon immediately crumbles in on himself. “Soonyoung _please_ -”

“Fuck you asshole,” and Soonyoung has never felt so furious in his entire life. “Wherever you’re going, I’m going with you. You’re not shipping me off somewhere else because you think it’s keeping me _safe._ ”

There’s nothing left to be said, and Soonyoung can only focus on the way his fists are clenched so tightly that his nails are going to leave crescent marks on his skin for days.

“I’m going to sleep on the couch,” Soonyoung finally finds it in himself to say in the ensuing silence. Jihoon doesn’t reply, doesn’t even raise his head in acknowledgement, and Soonyoung makes sure to slam the door loudly on his way out.

The couch isn’t the most uncomfortable place he’s ever had to sleep in, but Soonyoung finds himself unable to fall asleep that night.

 

* * *

 

Conversation between them is clipped the next morning. They see the younger ones off, Soonyoung hugging the life out of Chan and telling him to stay safe, pulling Hansol in for a hug as well when he thanks them again for everything they’ve done. 

Seungkwan hugs him just as tight, and murmurs, “Go easy on Jihoon hyung, he means well,” as they pull apart.

Once the three of them have disappeared beyond the departure gate, Jihoon turns to him hesitantly and asks if he wants to go for lunch.

Soonyoung raises an eyebrow at the offer. “Only if you’re paying,” he says and watches as relief immediately spreads across Jihoon’s features.

“Ye - yeah, _yeah_. Of course. I’ll pay.”

Soonyoung is intentionally obnoxious and orders the most expensive thing off the menu, and by the end of the meal the white hot fury he’d felt when Jihoon tried to convince him to leave has finally dissipated, leaving a quiet sadness in its wake.

Because it’s so much like Jihoon to always think he has to do things alone. To take the responsibilities of the world on his shoulders and to throw himself headfirst into danger while making sure to push everyone close to him out of the way so that they wouldn’t get caught up in the fray. _Let me be here for you_ , he desperately wants to say. _There are people who love you and who want to be there for you, let me be one of them._

“I shouldn’t have, yesterday,” Jihoon begins tentatively as they wait to board the plane. “You’re right, I’m better with you. I just worry about getting you hurt.”

“I worry about you getting hurt too,” and a soft, crooked smile graces Jihoon’s expression at Soonyoung’s reply.

“Don’t worry about me, I’m pretty damn invincible remember?”

 _But you’re really not_ , Soonyoung thinks sadly. _And what in the world am I supposed to do if I ever lose you?_

 

* * *

 

Junhui meets them at the airport, holding a sign that obnoxiously reads: _Looking for a midget_.

“I’m going to skin you alive,” Jihoon growls, and Junhui, the brave bastard, just laughs and ruffles his hair in response.

“Hey Junnie,” Soonyoung chirps, feeling ridiculously happy to see his teammate.

“I hope you have a good reason for interrupting our vacation,” Junhui says, pulling Soonyoung in for a hug. “Come on, let’s get you guys cleaned up and fed, and then we can talk.”

Junhui leads them to a swanky part of town, where the doorman greets them with a bow and a polite “Good evening sirs”. Jihoon looks a little judgingly at Junhui who just shrugs in response.

“We pay a little more for the privacy and discretion. Hao and I have had this place for years now and no one’s ever found us.”

He pushes the button for the penthouse apartment and grins at the expressions on their faces. Soonyoung is pretty sure he’s gaping like a fish out of water.

“What?” Junhui shrugs. “Hao needs to live in comfort.”

The apartment the elevator doors open to is huge. There’s so much space, almost far too much room for just two people, but the whole place is furnished in soft pieces and muted greys that makes it feel cozy and keeps it from being too impersonal; a clear indication that Junhui left the design of the apartment to Minghao. The drapes are satiny translucent things, that illuminates the entire interior with a soft ethereal glow, while framed artworks line the otherwise bare white walls.

Occasionally Soonyoung sees a small bit of mess: a pile of mismatched socks, a brightly coloured shirt left haphazardly over the back of a dining room chair, a stack of papers sitting on an otherwise empty table. He’s pretty sure those are Junhui’s stuff, the little bits and pieces scattered around the apartment of their shared life together.

“Hey hyung,” Minghao calls from the kitchen, and walks out holding a huge pot of something that smells incredibly delicious.

“Minghao,” Jihoon calls in reply, raising an eyebrow at his apron which says in bright pink letters: _kiss the chef_.

“Jun bought it as a present for me,” he replies, seemingly unbothered, setting the giant pot of stew in the middle of their dining table.

Jun just smirks and wraps himself around Minghao. “I take the term _fashion terrorist_ as a compliment.”

It’s strange to sit down to dinner with friends, Junhui chatting idly in between mouthfuls of food, Jihoon nodding along absently while Minghao keeps adding more food to Soonyoung’s bowl.

“Eat more Soonyoung hyung,” Minghao whispers to him when he notices that Soonyoung has stopped eating. “Everyone thinks better on a full stomach.”

He looks up and notices Jihoon is frowning at him from across the table, and tries to shake himself out of it, even though the whole situation is giving him whiplash.

“You okay?” Jihoon asks him as they’re doing the dishes, Minghao and Junhui going off to set up their rooms for the night.

“Yeah,” Soonyoung replies after a beat, breathes in, and out, and surprisingly, finds that he means it. The relief burns bright in his chest, and he grins at Jihoon and swipes at his nose, leaving a trail of soap-suds in its wake. Watches as Jihoon scrunches his nose in mock annoyance, before hitting him with the towel he’d been using to dry the dishes.

And for a moment, it feels like the past four days never happened, like Seungcheol hyung isn’t missing, like he and Jihoon have just been hanging out during their shared downtime and visiting their teammates where they can.

Jihoon is grinning, all soft and relaxed and _gorgeous_ at him, eyes curved and dimples deepening as he presses against his side, and something in Soonyoung’s chest grows and flutters and _bursts_.

(For a moment he wishes he could. Wishes he had the _guts_. To lean over and kiss Jihoon, with fireworks bursting behind his eyelids and scarlet warming his cheeks.)

“That’s cute,” Junhui drawls, making them jump apart like they’ve been burnt, the moment lost forever in time.

He doesn’t need to turn to see the smirk on Junhui’s face, and only nods when Jihoon mumbles something and excuses himself from the kitchen. “For fuck’s sake Jun,” he murmurs, and glares as he approaches the counter.

Junhui just crosses his arms and rests his hip against the countertop, grin still firmly in place. “I honestly couldn’t tell who was having a worse case of heart-eyes,” which makes Soonyoung roll his eyes as he dries off his hands.

Exhaustion hits Soonyoung almost immediately after, and he runs a hand through his hair before stifling a yawn.

“The both of you look like you’ve been run over by a truck,” Junhui tells him, “Go shower and sleep. We can talk tomorrow.”

“But - “

“Chan already called us ahead of time to give us a heads up Soonyoung hyung,” Minghao calls from the door of the kitchen. “He’s given us a rundown of what’s happened. Junhui and I already have some leads, but we’re not going to find anything more today. We can continue tomorrow when the both of you have rested up.”

“Always the voice of reason, my Haohao,” Junhui quips, voice fond and gaze soft.

Soonyoung makes a face and elbows Junhui as passes by. “I’m only doing this because of Minghao’s words of wisdom. _You_ , Wen Junhui, are still on thin fucking ice.”

“Love you too Soonyoung,” Junhui calls after him. “ _Sweet dreams!_ ”

 

* * *

 

The only downside of the giant penthouse is that Junhui and Minghao actually have enough spare rooms for both Soonyoung and Jihoon, so they won't need to share.

The bed probably costs more than anything Soonyoung’s ever owned, but despite the soft sheets with the ridiculous thread count he can't seem to fall asleep. It’s nearly three in the morning when Soonyoung finally gives in, rolling off the side of the bed and padding out of his room in search of the bedroom that Jihoon was given.

It takes him two tries before he finds Jihoon’s room. From the way Jihoon immediately sits up, eyes wide and alert the moment Soonyoung pushes the door open, he clearly wasn't able to fall asleep either.

“Sorry,” Soonyoung whispers to the dark room. “The bed felt too big, I couldn't fall asleep.”

And he stands there, still, the unspoken question stretching out between them, both stuck in some frozen moment in time, before Jihoon very carefully shifts to the side to make room for Soonyoung on the bed.

The breath that had been lodged in Soonyoung’s throat shudders free.

It’s something different, climbing into bed together. It’s a _choice_ , no being forced to share a room, no Soonyoung sneaking into Jihoon’s bed when he’s already asleep. Just the two of them, making the decision to share a bed at three in the morning, Soonyoung sitting tentatively on the edge of the mattress, tongue glued to the roof of his mouth, incredibly aware that any sound he makes could break the strange moment stretching out like molasses between them.

They settle together under the blankets, curled towards each other, hands a mere hair’s breadth apart.

“Sorry,” Soonyoung whispers again into the space between them. Even in the dark, Jihoon’s eyes are bright, and something warms his chest when Jihoon rolls his eyes and tries to fight a smile.

(The dimple at the corner of his mouth deepens, and Soonyoung _is in love_.)

Sleep comes as a slow thing, Soonyoung shuts his eyes, and focuses on listening to Jihoon breathe. The exhaustion of the past few days creeps up on him then, a bone-deep fatigue that tugs Soonyoung further into unconsciousness. Briefly, he feels fingers gently tangling with his, and the warmth against his palm is the last thing he remembers before falling into a dreamless sleep.

 

* * *

 

“Do you know where he was last seen?”

It takes a moment, but through the haze of waking Soonyoung recognises the quiet rasp of Jihoon’s _just-out-of-bed_ voice. When he turns over he can see Jihoon standing by the window of the room, a silhouette against the light of the early morning, and watches as he taps a finger impatiently against the phone he’s holding up to his ear.

“We’ve been checking in with everyone. Hansol thinks if anyone knows his exact location it’ll be Wonwoo and Mingyu.”

The voice that replies over the phone is a quiet murmur, and Soonyoung knows he has no chance of figuring out who it could be. Instead, he hugs the pillow more firmly against his chest, and buries himself into the covers. His shifting draws Jihoon’s attention, who turns towards him. Soonyoung wishes he wouldn’t stand against the bright window, if only so he could read the expression on Jihoon’s face to get some idea of what’s happening on the other end of the call.

“I’ve got Soonyoung with me,” and Soonyoung notices how he pauses for too long after, and then turns back so that he’s looking out to the street below.

“Yeah - _yeah_. Don’t worry about it. Everything’s going to be okay. I’ll keep you updated.”

Soonyoung feels his eyes start to drift close again, and carefully flattens his palm against the sleepwarmed sheets.

Open.

“I’ll talk to you soon.”

Shut.

“Stay safe.”

Open.

“Bye.”

Shut.

A hand clasps over his, and Jihoon’s weight jostles the bed, but Soonyoung keeps his eyes closed and hand curled loosely into a fist, feels Jihoon run a thumb over his knuckles, then slowly down the length of each finger, as though counting to make sure they’re all there.

“Go back to sleep Soonyoung,” Jihoon whispers, and Soonyoung stifles a yawn into the pillow.

“What time is it?”

“Way too early to be up.” He opens his eyes a sliver, and sees that Jihoon has closed his own eyes, breathing in even measures. His thumb doesn’t stop running down Soonyoung’s fingers.

“Yeah - yeah. Okay.”

They both breathe in silence, and Soonyoung feels like he’s slipping off to sleep again, but there’s a thought, something frantic, and urgent, that hammers at the back of his mind, and he murmurs the words almost as an afterthought:

“We’re going to be okay you know?”

The thumb on his hand stills. “Are we?”

“Mmhmm,” and Soonyoung yawns again, shifting a little so that he can bring Jihoon’s hand to his chest. Presses his palm against his ribcage so that he can feel the rhythmic _thumpthumpthump_ of his heart. “I’m not lying.”

The fingers against his chest twitch, just a little, before pressing intently, and Soonyoung feels the warmth and the comfort that radiate from the single point of contact. “Yeah?”

“We’ve got each other. You, me, Seungcheol hyung,” Soonyoung sighs, feeling his awareness slipping with each word. “So we’ll be okay.”

(He isn’t awake to watch the way Jihoon squeezes his eyes tight, a tremor shaking him for a moment before he stills. Isn’t awake to feel Jihoon lean forward so that their foreheads are pressed together, fingers gently flexing against the steady beating of his own heart.

Isn’t awake to see how _desperately_ Jihoon wants to believe.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, remember when I said 3 chapters and this would be done? And then I went and had a friend on the Carat Amino proofread this for me, and Ninie told me that this was definitely a 5 chapter fic because with the storyline I now have there's no way I can finish everything in a single chapter. So instead there will be two chapters of something resembling a plot, and a fifth chapter for an epilogue.
> 
> Also. Plot! And feelings! And boys being self-sacrificing idiots! And more team dynamics!
> 
> This fic is slowly but surely becoming a monster of it's own and as much as I hate writing it (because it never seems to end), I absolutely adore writing it too. And this is definitely because of all the wonderful people that have shown _all_ the love to this fic, in the form of bookmarks and kudos and comments, and I am so incredibly appreciative of every comment I've read from the previous chapter about how you guys appreciate the world-building and character dynamics; I hope this update lives up to the expectations.
> 
> As usual, all comments and kudos are incredibly loved, and any and all feedback is most welcomed. These are the things that feed this monster of a fic and make it stronger. Also, I've been going through a particularly terrible bout of writers' block, so just know that this chapter has been marinating on my hard drive since end July before I could finally find it in myself to post it. This definitely means that all mistakes are mine and mine alone.
> 
> If you made it to the end, and somehow read through my rambling endnote, thank you once again for being so supportive of this fic, and I hope this somehow makes your day marginally better!

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly had a ton of fun writing this, do let me know what you think. Next (and last) chapter should be up in about 2 weeks time, and I plan to do a series of short stories in this verse.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it, and as always, all comments and kudos are appreciated!
> 
> All mistakes are mine. Come find me on instagram (@btsvt_96) if you want to, and fic is cross-posted to asianfanfics under the username noteinabottle.


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